My girlfriend is making a three hour trip back to college today and she hates driving alone. She often calls me when she's making these drives and gets upset if I don't answer or I don't talk much. I'm not a phone person anyway, and I think that she should embrace the open road and the gift of being alone for three hours with her thoughts like I am when I drive. I realize she is not the same as me and doesn't think that way, so I try my hardest to talk with her as she drives even though it's mostly just small talk (I just can't talk about serious things on the phone, no matter how hard I try. It's more natural if it's in person).

Anyway, today on the phone she's talking about this semester and how much she's not looking forward to it and she says that "if I didn't have you, I wouldn't really have anything at all to look forward to". All sorts of alarms go off in my head and I try to tell her in the politest way possible that that is just not true. I forget how I said it, but it was something along the lines of "you have a lot in your life, you shouldn't have to consider me your only source of happiness".

Well, of course she got all kinds of upset and now she got off the phone with me. There really is a lot of potential in this relationship but in my opinion she really needs to get past this dependency thing. How in the hell do I help her realize that? Was I out of line when I told her in essence not to lean on me too much? Girls.

you should tell her "pay attention to the road. you already have something against you because you are a girl that is driving."

You did alright, washingmachine.

i think god made a mistake. i'm pretty sure i was supposed to be female

She probably thinks you wanted to break up with her.

good going, Reid.

Spoiler: show

sorry, I'm kidding. Just explain that you're glad she cares about you and you care about her too, etc- AND you just mean that you didn't think it was a good attitude because she has so much going for her, blah blah blah. Girls are going to act needy with their boyfriends, Reid. She just wants to feel like you appreciate her or something, in my opinion.

Do you suck at driving too?

*a newt

i appreciate you, Mary Malice.

actually i'm a very effecient driver.

well sure you do, until you grow up.

have you thought about sexual relations with her sister?

way to stereotype all people named Chris

you know, you're right. I think my problem in this relationship is that I try to use conversations like this as "teaching opportunities" when it's not really what she wants to hear. A lot of being in a relationship is understanding each other and reading between the lines, no? She was probably just lonely on the road and expressing thanks that I was talking to her.

you both have fast growing beards too

nah i wouldnt get on yourself for that too much, at least internally, because you were reading between the lines just like you said you should've been. you probably just shouldn't have said anything out loud about it, at least not on the phone like that because its kind of impersonal.

it would have made me raise an eyebrow for sure if i heard my girrrly say something like that. i think we're psychologists deep down. or maybe psychos. i don't remember.

here's the truism about how men and women talk to each other:

often women want to talk/complain/gripe/bitch about things just to be able to talk about it. They want support when they do this.

the problem is that when men are in these kinds of conversations with women, they often assume the woman wants a solution to the problem, like the man has some obligation to 'fix it' and so they start rambling off the kind of stuff you did in your conversation with her.

Next time tell her you understand, and you agree AND there are STILL loads of other things she can do in her life without having to depend on you to make her happy.

That way you get to play both sides off the middle.

Tell her to hang up the fucking phone and drive. I would bail out on this girl if she cannot spend a few hours on the road without talking to you or someone else.