Boyfriend trouble

My boyfriend and me are currently in a long distance relationship for the past 5 months. Before this we used to pretty much live together for a year so it's been a pretty big change. For context, soon after we started dating we did long distance for a year before I moved cities to live with him and for my career as well (also 1 year). Now again, he got a job in another country so he's gone back and I'm stuck here, building a career. Since we've done long distance for quite a while before I didnt think too much of it. We made it fun then and I honestly thought we'll be able to manage just fine. But this time around I'vr been having some trouble connecting with him. He lives with a lot more people so privacy is always an issue. We end up watching shows together and playing some times but that's about it. We don't even have deeper conversations or arrange dates anymore. I thought of doing something special and told him to keep some time aside for a cooking date and found a fun activity to do together and we had a lot of fun that day. But after that we went back to normal, just watching shows. I feel like the effort is only one sided. Other than this he is the best guy I've dated and really sweet, and I want to make things workout for us. I keep dropping hints but he can be slow at picking up things like this, but I feel like this is something that should organically come to him rather than me telling him exactly what to do to please me. Am I wrong? What can I do?