My girlfriend’s got a new job and now travels for a couple of weeks at a time. We were always happy with our sex life but now she’s away a lot she wants to have phone sex, but as much as I obviously miss her, the idea of phone sex freaks me out. To be honest I think I’ll be shit at it and ruin her image of me as a hot, fun guy (which I’m pretty sure I am in real life!). What do I do?

I used to be obsessed with Soulja Boy’s song Kiss Me Thru The Phone. I even rang the number he gives out in the song in the hope he’d pick up. Heaven knows what I thought I would have done if he had, because I hate phone sex. I read your question and felt a flood of relief that someone else feels the same way I do.

Although to be fair, I think for me it’s less a worry of being shit, and more the case of it just literally doing nothing for me. Honestly, I get sexts and you may as well have written ‘wanna pick up milk on your way home babe?’. It’ll elicit precisely the same emotion. I need physical closeness and touch to turn me on.

However, if you’re up for it in principle and just want to know how to not be rubbish, let me swap my personal hat for my professional one…

I’m encouraged by the fact that your IRL sex is great. That’s a perfect place to start. A lot of people get nervous about weaving elaborate erotic narratives, but anxiety is an immediate mood killer. So instead of making something up in the moment and tripping over glaring plot holes, just replay your favourite memory of the two of you having sex. Where were you? What was your girlfriend wearing (or not)? How did she touch you? How did you feel as you were reaching climax?

The next logical step is relaying what you’re hoping will happen when she’s next home. You say you’re missing her; just tell her (explicitly) what it is you miss. Again, it’s grounded in reality so there’s no pressure to develop characters or storylines.

Having said that, phone sex can actually be a really safe way to explore new ideas and test the water. If fear of judgement has previously stopped you from opening up about a particular fantasy, now’s your chance to vocalise it without the eyes of your loved one boring into your soul. Plus, it gives your girlfriend the chance to process it without there being any immediate physical pressure.

Or, rather than dictating an already formed fantasy, ask open questions and see where your back and forth dialogue leads you. How would you feel if I brought a blindfold into the bedroom? What would you want me to do to you if the end of the world was imminent? Imagine we were on a secluded beach….

Don’t be afraid of silence. Silence doesn’t mean you’re shit and struggling for words. In fact, if all the dirty talk is working you may well want a moment to feel present in your body. Focus on the images the two of you have been conjuring up. Touch yourself. Heavy breathing and quiet moans will likely start to naturally fill that silence anyway. Don’t underestimate the power of non-verbal communication when you’re worried words are failing you.

If mutual masturbation was part of the fun, don’t just hang up as soon as you’re done. In real life you’d likely still be entwined, basking in the post-coital afterglow together, and hitting end call as soon as you’ve got yours can severe the connection you’ve spent all that time making. Take time to wind down and laugh together before you hang up.

Finally, don’t neglect the technological admin. Make sure you’re somewhere you feel relaxed and that has excellent signal. And please invest in a good pair of wireless headphones because you’ll probably want to take this call handsfree.

I consider myself a nice guy. I’d say I’m pretty attractive too. I shower women with little presents and other gestures that I think are quite sweet, and yet I often feel like I don’t get as much back given how much effort I’m putting in. I don’t want to turn this into the age old question of ‘why do girls love a bad boy? …but is that what it is?

No, I don’t think that’s what it is.

It’s generally not the case that ‘nice’, ‘sweet’ and ‘effort’ are inherently negative things to be shunned in favour of an archetypal ‘bad boy’, it’s that one person’s idea of ‘nice’, ‘sweet’ and ‘effort’ might be another person’s sickly, cringey, and suffocating.

Everyone has different love languages, and the key to a successful relationship is to identify and communicate your own, and learn and respect your partner’s. (This goes for all relationships – romantic, platonic, familial, the lot!)

The five languages are words of affirmation, acts of service, gifts, quality time, and physical touch. As a general rule, people tend to have two they identify with most.

The most telling part of your question is ‘I shower women with little presents that I think are quite sweet’. There’s the kicker. You think they’re quite sweet. Your love language may well be gifts. That is, when you receive gifts you feel your partner has thought about you and gone out of their way to buy something they think you’ll like. That is ‘sweet’ to you, so you’re not wrong in feeling that way.

The issue is not appreciating that not everyone will share your understanding of ‘sweet’ or ‘effort’. Picture the scene: your partner comes home and you’re waiting at the door with a bunch of flowers and an expensive necklace. You think you’ve been incredibly thoughtful. However, her love language is acts of service and she couldn’t give a toss about gifts, so all she sees is the mountain of washing up behind you that – if you’d really been thinking about how you could positively impact her day – you would have taken care of before she got home.

You also say ‘I often feel like I don’t get as much back given how much effort I’m putting in’ …the above concept works in the opposite direction too. Has your partner actively carved out time to spend with you despite being disgustingly busy with work? Do they leave little notes around the house, hoping their words will pick you up when you’re having a shit day? Maybe they think you’ll respond to quality time or words of affirmation because you’ve never told them otherwise.

Thoughtful looks different to different people.

Ask Anouszka questions by commenting below or on her Instagram page.