New boyfriend doesn't like to talk!!! About anything!!

[FirstTimer861]

Hey, just after some advice..
I have been dating a guy for about 6 months. Pre lockdown we were always doing things, he is a very generous guy always pays when we are together, we had booked 2 holidays together (didn't end up happening because of corona) all in all we have a blast and he's lovely.

Now... we are obviously in lockdown. We haven't quarantined together just because he wanted his base to be closer to his mum incase she needed him. (Don't all yell at once) We have however seen each other on 2 occasions. He has come to mine and spent the weekend.

Now, pre lockdown... I thought I was falling in love with this guy.
During lockdown. And the fact that the weekends we do spend together are in the house chilling and watching TV. I have no idea what I am doing in a relationship with this guy!

Doesn't really like to talk. Which I knew, but when our attention was taken by other things it wasn't a problem. Now I find myself talking all sorts of crap just to fill the time, and after a day together I'm wishing he would leave!
It's so boring!! He's so boring!!
I like to talk shit, but I like to have contribution from the other party. He doesn't ask questions, not even really sure if he's interested tbh!

On the rare occasion he did share something, it's good and we have a conversation and I ask questions and try and stretch the topic out as much as I can... but then he'll clam up and say he's just not a talker. Not even about feelings or anything heavy. Just chit chat!

I guess my question is to those that are in a relationship with 'non talkers' does it change? Will it get better?
And do I just dump him? Or should I wait for 'normal' life to be resumed before taking such a massive step considering pre lockdown I actually saw a future with this guy?

Oh wow.. that was a long one! If you made it this far then thanks!

No. It won't change.

I don't think it will get better, it'll get worse.

I'm sorry because it sounds like it looked quite promising, but better to have found out early on.

I married someone who was chatty to begin with and now I can't get a proper conversation out of him, not even for business stuff like the kids, and it makes for such a lonely life.

The man you are seeing now is the one you will see when the honeymoon dating period is over. Doesn't sound like he's the one for you I'm afraid .

If you need to be out doing things to distract you from the fact that he has literally nothing to say, this is not the relationship for you.

No, it's just the way he is. If it's a new relationship and he's not making the effort to be interested in conversation now when it's supposed to be exciting and passionate, imagine how it will be in years to come when the excitement has worn off and he's got comfortable.

You will be bored to tears with the endless silent evenings he will be irritated with your constant chatter to fill the silence.

It will be a nightmare.

This is who he is.
You know what to do.

It's who he is. He really won't change.

Feel thankfully you found out now!

The 2.5 years I spent with someone like this were the loneliest of my life. Trying to get any conversation out of him was like pulling teeth. He will not change longterm.

DP is very quiet and I am a self confessed chatter box. It used to infuriate me. In reality he’s just extremely shy and valued his quite time and I soon learnt to value the same instead of needing to fill the empty space with conversation.

We live together now and it’s wonderful, sometimes he never shuts up. Me and DP were quite young when we met and I think it just took him some time to come out of his shell and feel comfortable, especially with him being so shy.

Personally I would wait it out until after lockdown. He may be quite stressed and this maybe be his way of coping. Also what is there to really talk about now? No one is doing anything atm

Never stay in a relationship with the expectation that a person's character will change, people make small changes and adjustments but by adulthood we are basically "cooked". I have been married 23 years, happily, and DH is still the man I married, just with some grey hair now. Think of it the other way round. Do you think if he said "Can you talk a lot less?" that it would happen? .

In our marriage we have learnt about each other and made adjustments, like now DH listens and doesn't try to problem solve if I am upset and emotional. I have grown to understand how all his projects in the garage help him with stress relief. But we are still very much the same. Give it more time if you want but I doubt he is going to be different than he is now. BTW we both just were laughing hysterically with my 16 yr old on our bed as DH insisted he could be a fantastic rapper and beat boxer (right?! at 51?) He was beatboxing (is this 1983?) and we were laughing so hard that DH was crying and told me "stop the laughing is becoming painful!". If you aren't laughing like that now, you are unlikely to 23 yrs later. If he is boring you already then please listen to your instincts.

God I had one of those once op. I didn't realise it either until a romantic weekend away where he basically spent the whole time on his phone or grunting replies to me. Gave it a few months to improve but it just got worse. I totally feel for you about pouncing on any tiny sliver of conversation and trying to milk the topic for all its worth. So awkward and soooo boring. Dump him and move on.

Just be thankful that you realised this now, and not once you’d moved in together. I couldn’t be with someone like this. In fact I have family like this who sometimes come to stay with me as they live overseas and I find it extremely exhausting trying to fill the gaps of their silence.

Move on.

If he’s so boring and it’s only the odd weekend, imagine what it would be like long-term. Call it a day.

I spent many years with someone who had little to say, ever. It would drive me to tears of frustration after yet another silent mealtime when he spent the whole time looking at his plate and eating. Even meals out where eaten in silence, unless I chattered on about nothing and anything. But he was a nice, kind man, just not a talker.
It was very lonely and made be very depressed. To me having nothing to say denotes a lack of interest and curiosity about life and that's the real problem. It's not a coincidence that we talk about people 'dying' of boredom.

Just gets worse.

....."To me having nothing to say denotes a lack of interest and curiosity about life and that's the real problem. It's not a coincidence that we talk about people 'dying' of boredom."

This

That reminds me of Mrs Morel in Sons and Lovers; very unlikely that he will change.

Being able to talk about god and the world, everything, high brow and low brow, is as important as good sex. In other words, essential.

My Ex had a lot of faults, which is why he's my Ex, but we always talked. Sex was great too, but the one thing I miss about him is our daily walks, when we would talk, talk, talk...

Maybe you mostly fell in love with him at first because he was so busy sweeping you off your feet that you didn't notice he had no conversation?

I've recently got rid of one like this. Lovely lovely man (although he was tight with money, so not much 'sweeping' going on) but absolutely NO chat/conversation/small talk.

We'd (I'd!!) had a talk about something deep that had been going on, involving emotions running high and lots of emotional input (I think it was more of a monologue, to be honest). He sat, quietly. I asked him what he was thinking about and he said 'I'm trying to decide whether to buy an automatic car next time, or another manual'.

It was as if anything I said, he would nod along to, but it would just slide right off him. Leave now, OP. Honestly. Before you are one of those couples in restaurants who go in, eat fast without a word and leave (that was us, I hated it).

@Zaphodsotherhead that is exactly what my ex used to do. I'd be talking animatedly and passionately about something important, life/the universe/politics/the future, and he'd just interrupt with "wow look at that very normal boring car that just went past". I used to literally beg him to let me see inside his thoughts because I couldnt believe somebody allegedly intelligent was just so vacant. It was so, so lonely.

The day he left me for a mutual friend was the best day of my life, I actually felt sorry for her because he was incapable of being anything else.

It is the loneliest place on Earth .

It felt to me quite often that he wasn't 'really there' iyswim, off somewhere in his own inner world. I used to 'tease' him about being an alien and was he downloading from the mothership when he was 'absent', ie silent. He thought it was amusing but had no real idea what I was trying to say. As I said, it was incredibly lonely.

Have had that with chaps. All great when it's all passion and excitement but when it gets more normal you realise they are boring and you have nothing to talk about.
Not that me and oh chat about thrilling stuff, what's for dinner, what happened in that film we just watched but we can talk and not bore each other.

Zapho, that reminds me, we too used to eat quickly in restaurants and leave as there was no reason to sit after the plates were cleared. Long car journeys in silence, long walks with no conversation, endless silent evenings in front of the TV.
This was a man who had two degrees and held down a challenging job so can't even use being dim as an excuse.

dogs - oh yes, the car journeys! I used to sit silently sometimes to see how long it would be before he spoke. We could get two good hours of silence usually before he'd put the radio on!

I've written about him before. He had no 'inner life' (apparently this is a real condition that I've been educated about on here), and his outer life was dull too. So he has nothing to say. Not well educated either. But a lovely and very kind man who would do anything for anyone, which was why I stuck it as long as I did.

It's the loneliness in the end that gets you.