Running Out of Things to Talk About in Your LDR (And Why That's Normal)

You're on a video call with your partner. You've talked about your day—briefly, because nothing happened. You've asked about theirs—same story. Now you're both staring at each other, or worse, at your phones while technically on a call.

"So..."

"Yeah..."

Silence.

If you've been in a long distance relationship for more than a few months, you know this moment. The creeping awareness that you have nothing to say. The anxiety that follows: Are we growing apart? Is this what falling out of love feels like? Do couples who are going to make it never run out of words?

I remember the first time it happened to me. Month six, maybe seven. We'd been talking every day, and suddenly I noticed I was dreading the call. Not because I didn't want to talk to him—because I didn't have anything to talk about. The conversation had become a chore, and that felt like a betrayal of everything we'd built.

I was wrong about what it meant. And if you're in this place right now, you might be wrong too.

Why do LDR couples run out of things to talk about?: Long distance relationships rely disproportionately on verbal communication. Without shared physical experiences—meals, walks, errands, mundane life—conversation has to carry weight it normally wouldn't. Most couples experience conversational fatigue around 4-8 months into the distance, when the novelty has worn off but daily check-ins are still happening. This is a structural problem (too much talking, not enough shared experience) rather than a relationship problem.

What This Silence Actually Means

Let me tell you what the silence doesn't mean:

It doesn't mean you're falling out of love
It doesn't mean you're incompatible
It doesn't mean the relationship is failing
It doesn't mean you made a mistake

Here's what it probably does mean:

You've exhausted your conversation reservoir

When you first went long distance, you had years of unexplored territory—stories, opinions, memories, preferences you'd never shared. That well isn't infinite. Eventually you've covered the major stuff, and what's left is the daily minutiae that doesn't feel worth discussing.

Your lives aren't generating new material

Be honest: how interesting is your day-to-day life? If you're in a routine—work, home, sleep, repeat—there isn't much to report. And hearing "my day was fine" gets old fast. The problem isn't the relationship; it's that you're both living in holding patterns.

You're talking too much

Counterintuitive, but true. If you're talking every single day, you're using up material faster than you're generating it. You don't give experiences time to become stories. You don't have space to miss each other. The constant connection becomes a pressure valve instead of a gift.

You've passed the honeymoon phase

In the early months, everything felt urgent and revelatory. Now you're in the adaptation stage. The intensity has normalized. This isn't a loss—it's what sustainable connection feels like. But it does require adjusting expectations.

The Real Problem (It's Not What You Think)

Here's something I've realized after years of practice with long distance couples: the problem usually isn't that you don't have things to talk about. It's that you've confused talking with connecting.

In a geographically close relationship, connection happens through shared presence. You eat dinner together without saying much. You watch a show on the couch. You run errands. The connection isn't verbal—it's the experience of being in the same space, doing life alongside each other.

Long distance strips that away. You can't just exist together; you have to talk to feel connected. So you talk and talk and talk, and eventually the talking becomes exhausting, and then you panic because if you're not talking, how are you connecting?

The answer isn't more talking. It's finding other ways to connect that don't require constant verbal production.

7 Ways to Reconnect (Without Forcing Conversation)

Talk Less, But Better

This is counterintuitive for people who fear silence, but: consider reducing how often you talk.

If you're talking every day and conversations feel stale, try every other day. Or three times a week. The space allows experiences to accumulate into stories. It gives you time to miss each other, which is its own form of connection.

Some couples resist this because daily calls feel like commitment. But a resentful daily call isn't more connected than an enthusiastic twice-weekly one. Quality compounds; obligation erodes.

Try this: Propose an experiment. "Let's try calling every other day for two weeks and see if our conversations feel different." Frame it as curiosity, not distance.

Do Things Together Instead of Talking

Parallel activity is underrated. Watch a movie "together" on Netflix Party. Play an online game. Cook the same recipe simultaneously. Do a puzzle while on a video call. Listen to a podcast and discuss it after.

These activities create shared experiences—the raw material for future conversations. And they let you be together without the pressure to perform connection through words.

One couple I worked with started doing virtual "study sessions"—they'd both work on their laptops, on video call, not talking. Just being in each other's presence. It felt like sitting in the same room. The silence became comfortable instead of threatening.

Try this: Start a TV show that you only watch together. The show becomes a shared project, something you're experiencing at the same pace.

Ask Different Questions

"How was your day?" is a dead end. It invites "Fine" and kills the conversation. But questions that prompt real thought, memory, or imagination can open new terrain.

The goal isn't to interrogate—it's to discover. Even after years together, there are things you don't know about each other. Experiences you haven't asked about. Opinions that haven't come up.

Memory Questions

What's a moment from your childhood you never think about?
What's the best meal you ever had?
When's the last time you cried from laughing?

Opinion Questions

What's something most people like that you just don't get?
What's overrated in your field?
What's a hill you'll die on that doesn't matter?

Imagination Questions

If you could teleport anywhere right now, where?
What would your perfect Sunday look like in five years?
If money weren't an issue, what would change?

Reflection Questions

What have you changed your mind about recently?
What's something you're proud of that you don't talk about?
What's harder than it looks in your life?

Try this: Pick one question from a list and make it the starting point of tonight's call. Don't use it as an interrogation—share your own answer too.

Embrace Comfortable Silence

Not all silence is a problem. In long-term relationships, comfortable silence is actually a sign of security. You don't need to perform. You can just... be.

The anxiety around silence often creates more problems than the silence itself. You're so worried about the pause that you fill it with forced small talk, which feels hollow, which makes you more anxious.

Some silences are just moments between thoughts. They don't need to be fixed.

Try this: Next time there's a pause, resist the urge to fill it. Count to ten in your head. Often, either you or your partner will think of something naturally. And if you don't, that's okay too.

Create Something Together

Shared projects generate connection and conversation. You're building something, which gives you progress to discuss, problems to solve together, excitement to share.

This could be:

Planning your next visit in excessive detail
Creating a shared playlist that evolves over time
Reading the same book and discussing chapters
Building a shared Pinterest board for your future home
Learning a language together
Starting a tradition (weekly poem exchange, monthly video letter)

Try this: Start a shared Google Doc called "Our List" and add things to it over time: restaurants to try together, movies to watch, places to visit, dreams you've mentioned. It becomes an artifact of your relationship.

Live More Interesting Lives

This sounds harsh, but hear me out: if your days are identical, you have nothing to share. The solution isn't better conversation techniques—it's having more to converse about.

This is actually good for you beyond the relationship. Invest in friendships. Try new things. Have experiences that are yours alone. Then you bring that richness back to your calls.

The anxiety of long distance can make people contract their lives, focusing entirely on the relationship. But that contraction creates the very problem you're experiencing now: you've made your world so small that there's nothing left to say.

Try this: Each week, do one thing worth telling your partner about. A new restaurant, a walk in a new neighborhood, a conversation with an interesting stranger. Collect experiences deliberately.

Check If the Problem Is Deeper

Sometimes "running out of things to talk about" is cover for something else. You're avoiding topics that feel too hard. There's resentment you haven't voiced. The future feels uncertain and neither of you wants to address it.

The surface conversation goes stale because the deeper conversation isn't happening.

If the strategies above don't help, ask yourself: Is there something we're not talking about that we need to?

Try this: Start a call with "Is there anything we've been avoiding?" The answer might be no, and that's fine. But often it opens something that's been silently affecting everything else.

What If Nothing Works?

Sometimes running out of things to talk about is what it appears to be: a sign that the relationship isn't working anymore. This is rare, but it happens.

The difference is usually this:

Normal conversational fatigue: You miss them when you're not talking. You're glad they called. You want connection, you're just struggling to find the words.
Something deeper: You're relieved when the call ends. You don't feel like reaching out. The problem isn't that conversations are hard—it's that you don't particularly want to have them.

Be honest with yourself about which one you're experiencing. And if it's the second, that's worth addressing directly—not through techniques to improve conversations, but through real talk about whether this is still working.

A Different Way to Think About Silence

Here's what I wish someone had told me in month seven, staring at my phone screen in awkward silence:

The couples who make it through long distance aren't the ones who always have something to say. They're the ones who can sit in the silence without panicking. Who understand that connection isn't performance. Who know that love doesn't require constant proof.

The silence you're afraid of might be an invitation. To be together without talking. To want instead of having. To sit in the ache of missing someone, which is its own form of intimacy.

You're not running out of things to say. You're just past the phase where words do all the work. And that's not a failure. That's growing up.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it normal to run out of things to talk about in a long distance relationship?

Yes, it's extremely common and doesn't indicate a failing relationship. Most LDR couples experience conversational lulls, especially after the honeymoon phase (typically 4-8 months in). The issue is structural: you're trying to maintain connection through talk alone, without shared physical experiences to generate natural conversation material.

How often should long distance couples talk?

There's no universal answer, but research suggests quality matters more than frequency. Happy LDR couples average about 8 hours of communication per week across all channels.^[1] However, forcing daily calls when you have nothing to say can create pressure and resentment. Many couples find that reducing frequency (e.g., 3-4 times per week instead of daily) actually improves conversation quality.

What should I do when long distance calls feel boring?

First, recognize that boring calls aren't relationship failure—they're a sign you need to change something. Options include: reducing call frequency to rebuild conversational appetite, switching formats (games, movies, activities instead of pure talking), addressing whether you're talking or actually connecting, and accepting that some silence is comfortable, not problematic.

References

Jiang, L. C., & Hancock, J. T. (2013). Absence makes the communication grow fonder. Journal of Communication, 63(3), 556-577.
Dainton, M., & Aylor, B. (2002). Patterns of communication channel use in the maintenance of long-distance relationships. Communication Research Reports, 19(2), 118-129.

Still feeling disconnected? Explore the psychological stages of LDRs to understand where you are in the journey, or take our attachment style quiz to understand your communication patterns.