Hi there,

So, my boyfriend and I have been dating for over a year now. We live together and our relationship is pretty great, overall.

However, there are some times when I get annoyed by him. He’s a smart guy and he has a tendency to talk about abstract and esoteric (e.g. philosophy) topics in a long-winded way. Even if I don’t interject with anything, he’ll still keep talking. Sometimes it feels like I’m in a lecture rather than connecting with my partner. To give you a better idea, I’ll give a recent example:

We are at a coffee shop, sitting at a table, one morning, with our coffee. We’re going to hang out until we meet his stepdad for brunch. I have a notebook and I’m reviewing notes that I’d took recently (studying programming). There’s some light conversation and then he starts talking about modal arithmetic. Honestly, at this point, it’s pretty early. I don’t want to have a conversation about this — it’s overwhelming me. However, I’m not sure what to do or change the topic to. He basically proceeds to talk for the next 15-20 minutes and we leave the coffee shop.

We’re now on a walk and he’s still talking about modal arithmetic or some other abstraction. At this point, I feel my anxiety starting to peak because I have no idea how to escape this conversation. I fumble in my purse for a rock I like to handle when I’m feeling anxious. He looks at me and he says, “What’s wrong?” I can’t remember what I said, but it didn’t quite convey the idea of “I don’t want to talk about this.” He says, “You want me to shut up?” And I said, “yes.” He was angry after that. I ended up crying.

I just felt really helpless. If I had had my way, I would’ve just preferred to quietly observe nature on our walk or have some light conversation. Maybe that means I needed space and shouldn’t have gone out that day? We ended up discussing it and my partner said it would be helpful if I could let him know I started to feel anxious. Or if I changed the topic — although that doesn’t usually work IMO; he often stream-rolls right through my casual mentions of other topics.

Anyway, I like being in this relationship. It’s just that I often find my partner’s conversational style intense and sometimes alienating. It bothers him though because sometimes he says I just look mad and disengaged.

So, basically, I’m looking for any insight people want to bring and tips as well. My takeaway is that I should be more direct about my needs.