I had quite some problems with some relationships over the last year or so. It was because for me the quality time, physical touch, and words are all important to me. And hey, I got NONE of them! :/
There were three very casual relationships, and they all believed it was a relationship they were in with me.
J hadn't seen me in two years, had never said that he cared about me, and did not interact with me online in a way that went beyond friendship. When we had had an in-person relationship (when we lived in the same city), he saw me at most once a month, but would not confirm anything until the night before, or even on the day. The whole thing made me feel incredibly devalued. He was unfortunately the only person I could turn to for Physical Touch at the time, so I put up with it. The second I moved city, I was sure I would never see him again, the relationship (such as it was) was over, we were not very close friends. This was someone I fell in love with too. Over the next two years I fell out of love with him, because I got nothing except very infrequent and very superficial communication from him.
At some point last year I had a shitty date with C, and stopped making an effort to arrange dates with her. The shitty date was because I had stayed the night - as we had agreed in advance - but actually she hadn't wanted me to at all, but hadn't said so. So in the morning she got up and was doing the dishes and other housework. If I had been there on my own, I would have just left; but my husband was there too, and he was all "reconnect with her, you two haven't had sex in ages and I know that you need sex to feel connected, and she has a high sex drive and she loves you". And so I was hugging her in the kitchen and she was like "ooooh, sexy!" but only giving me half her attention, and staying doing the housework. So I felt crappy.
And then eventually she told us she wanted some time alone before her other plans that day, and I felt like she'd told me I wasn't welcome, and we were both out the door less than 10 mins after that. So I stopped asking her to make a date... and then there weren't any dates, except group things, where she doesn't interact with me much anyway, as another of her partners came and she hadn't seen him in a very long time. And then I didn't see her in two months. And I realised I did not *want* to ask her to spend time with me, and have her blow me off, again. I wanted to ask her if she still wanted to be my girlfriend, because I didn't think that she did. (There was then quite some drama over us misunderstanding what we meant by various labels, but we resolved it in the end.) We're now friends, I suppose, but I only see her at parties and group events, and don't really bother to talk to her apart from that, and she doesn't bother to talk to me. Sometimes she goes up to me to kiss me, but she hasn't paid attention to me the whole night prior to that, and I'm in the middle of a conversation with a friend, and I don't love her anymore, so I'm not ditching one friend's interest and time to lock lips with another friend who mostly ignores me!
And then O, who I've only ever had a very casual thing with. We were friends to start with, and one night he came home with me, and over the next year or so, he started spending the night with me about once a month. And then he added that he was in a relationship with me on a social media account, which I was very surprised by, as we'd never discussed it and while I was in love with him, I only considered us to be (sexy) friends.
Now, the last time we had sex was 8 months ago. The last time I saw him was 6 months ago. Our online communication is infrequent and shallow. I don't honestly understand why he thought we had a relationship. For me a feeling isn't a relationship - spending time together and touching, is. And for LDRs, skyping (and probably cybering). But he lives in the same city, 45 mins away. Yes, he has a busy life, but I'm getting nothing from him, and I do think that if he wanted to, he would make time to see me, or at least talk to me.
I find that one other thing I really need in relationships is reliability. These three are awful schedulers.
J had a disconnect; if we agreed to a date, he thought that was more or less set in stone, but we could hammer out the details about 12-24 hours beforehand. I thought that meant he had forgotten, and didn't care, and I might as well go out and do something fun that I could actually look forwards to and plan in advance, instead of keeping that night free but not being sure if he would actually come through or not, because so far my life has taught me that if there is no time and place the night before, it isn't going to happen, they're just going to disappear on you.
C and O had the same issue of everything being incredibly vague or commitments to time being very optional, or they would just see how they felt on the day.
C cancelled on me a few times, and then avoided me afterwards, "because you were so disappointed last time". And I wanted reassurance that she hadn't cancelled because she didn't want to see me, and then she wouldn't talk to me, which made me feel like shit.
O just never ever confirms anything ever. No times, he just shows up, or doesn't. He never just says "no." So if I invite him to something and he says "maybe", I'm on edge the whole time, half hoping he'll come, and half preparing myself to be disappointed when he doesn't. Instead of just being sad for maybe 5 seconds if he'd just say no, and then forgetting about him and just enjoying whatever it is in the moment. (Also I'm faceblind - I cannot passively recognise people. I *need* to be looking for them, the whole time, or I will not *see* them. I have hurt a lot of people this way, so I've learnt that I need to look out for people on high alert if there is any chance that they will be there.)
So.
More than anything else, being consistent and reliable.
Then quality time, then physical touch, then words.
On the other side of relationships, I give gifts, touch, and acts of service. The amount of quality time I need is not all that high - one or two days/nights a month.
