Confused and not sure what has happened

What did he get you for Christmas?

just ask him what happened

Thank you liza. I do appreciate your comment Jen however i said for months before anything started happening that I wouldn’t do casual sex and it has to mean something. I made a typo before we only started sleeping together in August after a lot of build up (months of getting close and spending time together) and I was sure he had strong feelings for me and I had them for him also. I know he doesn’t ‘Owe’ me anything but to go from texting me all the time spending as much time as possible with me to, declaring his love for me etc he always said he understood my feelings regarding sex and it was about more than that for him as well.
I am just so confused because everything seemed fine and normal and then to just ignore me I think is really hurtful and wrong.
I know liza said he will probably come back but I really want that to happen. At the same time I know I shouldn’t because he hasn’t made me feel nice. It is just so confusing I don’t know what to do. Thank you for all of your help.

Here is what I see from what you shared.
1. You say that you told him you don’t do casual sex” but then you did by agreeing to sleep with him and not discuss or push the gf label. If you aren’t a gf, you are casual. How did that not compute with you?

2, since he is only in this for casual, when you showed jealousy he may have started to think , woahh. This woman is more into me than I like. So he decided to give you a loud and clear messsage that this is casual by not keeping in touch as a bf would.

You accepted the terms. So to beat up on the guy isn’t really fair, going with the flow usually isn’t in a woman’s best interest.

When you see him again just ask why he disappeared and where this dating is going. I’m afraid he isn’t on the same page with you, but the only way to know is to ask.

This is what happens when you don’t discuss what your relationship standard is. It is really unwise to keep dating somebody when you never discussed if you are boyfriend or girlfriend. I think it is horrible behavior of him and men should never treat women this way if they are decent. But the way the world Works men think they could use women as long as I haven’t announced that she is his girlfriend

I also am OVER people saying “the guy owes you NOTHING”. How would you feel if your friend randomly stopped talking to you? You’d probably be pretty upset and confused. This is worse because they were intimate and he told her he loved her! Maybe she should have talked to him more about exclusivity and labels – but I think he still owes her an explanation.

I think you should just ASK him what the hell is up? You’ve tried pulling away and it’s not really working. If he doesn’t have a damn good explanation then your answer is he is done and you should be too.

He probably doesn’t want to have a deep discussion. I bet he will be happy to see you but only if you keep it light and fun. Surprise him by not having a problem.

You are doomed if you want to “have a talk”

Suck up the small faux pas you made. Even if he was slightly pissed, I’m sure he has by now see it as not a big deal. Don’t ever mention it again. Don’t ?bring up any problems and enjoy things the way they were before the holidays

I am also tired of this “he owes you nothing” BS. Of course he owes you something: respect. The respect of a friend if nothing else, but also that of a man who told you he loves you.

I can understand why you didn’t feel the need to press the issue of labels, Jilly. The man said he loves you after all. That is not casual at all.

Why the hell are you going to be light and fun tomorrow? He’s ignored you. That isn’t ok. It’s upset you because you’re human and you deserve to be treated better by a man who supposedly loves you. Why are you going to act like things are okay?

If he loves you like he says he does, your one jealous moment that you apologized for doesn’t matter. If he loves you like he says he does, you can get upset about him ignoring you and it won’t hurt things. You acting like everything is okay when it’s not WILL hurt things, because it will show him that you don’t have a lot of self-respect. That you will accept poor treatment. That you’re desperate for any scrap he throws your way.

If I were you I would give him the cold shoulder. If he asks about it say he’s ignored you for two weeks and you expect more from a man who supposedly loves you. If he walks away then he does not love you and doesn’t want a relationship with you. If he sticks around tell him you need to define the relationship and he needs to step up and not ignore you.

Expect more for yourself.

I may be old and don’t get the way of nowadays,but if a guy said he loved me (and I was sure it was not a ploy for sex),then I would imagine I was his girlfriend. Anything else he considered me to be would be B.S. to me and a guy that was flakey and or a jerk.

I 100% agree with Aida. Please do not act all easy breezy. What’s going to happen is the same thing I did with my ex. I would get upset bc his communication was poor, but I wanted to come off as “the cool girl”. So I always acted like everything was fine even though i felt hurt. Guess what happened? The resentment of him not treating me right built up and would come out after drinking or after a bad day at work and a huge fight would ensue. If we would have talked about things more openly, it probably would have helped. It also would have helped if I too had talked more about the future. It was only until I was at rock bottom emotionally that I decided to have the hard talk with him and turns out he never really saw a future.

If you were dating this guy for like a month and he started pulling away I would totally say back off and play it cool. But this is someone you’ve been intimately involved with for 8 months. Labels or not, he owes you an explanation. Talk to him. Stay calm. Use expression like “I feel…” instead of lecturing him.

I’m so sick of the women on these boards telling other women they are desperate or needy or crazy. He does owe you something even as just a friend. That is not okay.

Again I stress do not flip out on him, but calmly talk about this and maybe just have the future talk discussion. Why keep wasting more time “being the cool girl” with a man who may just be wasting your time until someone he really wants to commit to comes along?

Well he didn’t buy you a ring for Christmas so you know where you stand . So what’s the point of demanding to know where we stand.

Well I went in today… prepared to be calm and collected and confident regardless of what happened. I made sure I looked my best but not like I had tried to hard. Was happy and friendly with everyone. I got to the office a little late so he was already at his desk which is the other side but within eye level and he didn’t say one word to me all day.

We didn’t have to interact about work and we didn’t walk past each other or anything like that so he wasn’t overtly rude but he did not come over to me and say hello or text me like he usually would ( we can see each other from our desks but too far away to tall verbally)

I am absolutely devestated. Part of me was hoping he would come over and apologise and things would be ok but he didn’t say anything. Nothing at all happened.

He looked over when I was talking to another guy and That was it, caught eyes for a brief moment a couple of times but he didn’t smile or anything. Just like I ceased to exist.

I’m worried that maybe I have caused problems by not reaching out first but that’s not right is it. I mean he must know that what he has done is hurtful and should reach out first? My friend said to text him what’s going on or ask him to lunch but I didn’t want to demean myself or look desperate if he is giving me the you are dead to me message. I just got stuck in to work and was happy and pleasant and tried to project that there was nothing bothering me all day.

I don’t know what to do now. Do I text and just say what’s up with the silent treatment? Do I try and talk to him tomorrow?

It seems terribly cruel to go from sleeping with someone, being in constant contact, telling them you love them and are in it for the long haul together to just nothing. Especially when I don’t think I have done anything wrong? Even if you dont have relationship labels.

Feeling completely destroyed. Logically I know his feelings towards me have nothing to do with me being a good person or a bad person etc but I feel absolutely devestated.

Any advice on what to do next?