The context:
I have a situation with a guy who now moved to a different country, him and I are very close however I've never spoken with him on the phone. We text and I see him in person but calling/FaceTiming is not something we've ever done. AND he hates calling and FaceTiming, and he's always super busy.
The situation:
Anyways a recent incident occurred and I texted him that I urgently needed to speak with him. Since I won't be able to see him face to face for months and this isn't something I can text and I wanted to FaceTime him or call him on the phone and he said okay
The problem:
I texted this a couple of days ago and at the time I was feeling very very depressed and stressed the urgency of the issue. Now when we have to FaceTime I don't know how to even start addressing the conversation. I can't just ask him how his day is and talk about pleasantries but it also seems rude to just jump right into the topic of discussion. Can someone please give me examples of ways to start talking about the topic in a way that is not awkward because I'm scared of that.
What I'm thinking:
"Hi, thanks for agreeing to talk to me on the phone I know you're really busy."
But then I'm stuck, I would think there should be a little more small talk before diving into a difficult discussion.
The problem:
He moved away and I wanted to be with him and he says he wants to be with me but he lives in Europe now though I live in America. He said it won't work because he's going to be in Europe indefinitely and we can only see each other a couple times a year.
My solution:
I just graduated with my masters and am pursuing a PhD, not in the same country as him but somewhere in Europe. I would be there by next year, and then it would only take 1 hour for me to see him on weekends etc., it would be like a normal relationship (I thought of the logistics of it). But as of right now, the only remaining times I can see him this year is two weeks in the summer adn then he can see me two weeks in october, but these are only a couple of months of not seeing each other. I want to convince him to just try till the end of this year. He doesn't know I had this plan for my PhD and so now I want to bring it all up because the main issue was that we would be doing long distance indefinitely.