Keeping in touch

It sounds like you’re expectations of “friendship” is very different than his, at this point in time. Friendships don’t operate on a straight plane, where you chit chat more often, less often, or don’t talk/spend time for long periods of time based on what’s going on in one or both of your lives. I am so busy with my business that I can easily go looooooooong periods of time without talking to friends or family! If they didn’t reach out to me, it would be longer lol.

It sounds like you are trying to hold onto this friendship too tight, where he’s taking the “out of sight, out of mind” approach so he can get over his romantic feelings for you, and move one with someone else. There are many different levels people transition, especially when it comes to friendship, to lovers OR lovers to friendship. He needs to decrease contact, and take time away from you, before he’s able to transition. I would respect his need to do this by giving him the space/time he needs to properly sort out his feelings. It also gives you time to do the same so you can properly focus on others, instead of him.

To be honest, holding a flame for another is not the time you should be dating. Its really not fair to waste these guys time, and $, when your heart is still blocked by another. You are clearly not over him, and should probably take a ‘time out’ from him, and dating, until you’re heart is fully open for another man to enter.

Thanks for your message Lane, I didn’t see it before I posted my last response.

I’ve not been in the area for a month and haven’t really thought about him much during that time, what has made me start thinking about this again is that I’m due to visit again next week and it seemed like a natural time to say hello again if o was going to do that, but I couldn’t decide if that would be really weird.

I know it might be a case of him needing some time which is why I haven’t messaged him for a couple of months now, but because he doesn’t know when I’ll be here or there there’s no natural point for him to check in with me.

I take your point about the new guys but I don’t think that I’m still ‘holding a flame for him’, I wasn’t sure how seriously I felt about him even when we were dating, we were quite early on when it ended and I hadn’t made up my mind.

And to add: if i had kept every weird acting guy as a friend i would have a whole kennel by now. And they would me much

Thanks for your message Newbie, that actually made me laugh out loud!

He is a slightly weird guy at times, I found him funny, interesting, very easy to talk to and enjoyable to be around so I overlooked the occasional strange statement but every so often he’d say/do something that seemed quite out of character. Mostly the theme was that he just badly wanted to find the woman he’d be with for the rest of his life as soon as possible (his long term relationship fell apart a year ago and he’s only just started dating again, I think he’s just found himself alone later in life than expected and worrying that he might miss a chance to have a family etc – but he’s only 37).

So he was worried about starting something with me that couldn’t be rushed, then decided after trying to date new people it made more sense to date me (since I was otherwise what he was looking for), than other people who were maybe looking to settle down more quickly but weren’t really what he wanted so probably wouldn’t last long term anyway. The break up was for similar reasons.

I guess the whole thing did just feel really sad, I felt really sorry for him and a bit for me, staying in touch in the beginning made me feel a lot less like the whole thing had been a complete waste of time and emotion. Plus I genuinely do like his company and I thought if we were friends I could enjoy the good bits without the bad.

Lol Yeah i got that part already about the guy. And how sad he is and how worried he might not get a family. And then yet if someone offers him friendship (you) he cant even be consistent in that. So ok, now rephrase the whole situation in where you are mid twenties and being gorgious and adventurous. What is the attraction of this guy again and how does he meet your standards in being a consistent friend? O give you a clue: they dont ghost.
Anyway, i would really focus on you. Thats your job

u want to be friends and stay in touch. wid occasional casual meets thrown in.he doesnt seem keen for any of those. i think there is noting much you can do in this situation since hes made no endeavors to keep in touch. think you need to forget about him and give up the idea of hving him in your life as a friend.

Thanks.

I figured that if we weren’t dating the emotional ups and downs wouldn’t be a thing, when we met for the last time he did say that he was considering therapy if he still felt so panicked about dating a few months down the line, so I also thought given that he might actually be in a better place anyway. The reason I ignored all the red flags is that I really got the sense he was a nice guy who’d been messed around quite a bit and had just developed some bad behaviour as a result which would probably pass with time.

I suppose what I was really asking is if it was reasonable to check in at this point, since he doesn’t know when I’ll be in the area he doesn’t have the same natural point he could reach out even if he was feeling better about the idea of being friends. Plus he’s an overthinker generally, he will have been able to see I’ve been interacting with other men because the platform we’re on makes that sort of thing quite obvious (if you log in at the wrong time you might see something on your feed even without looking at the others profile), so if he suddenly decided he wanted to talk to me again I think that might put him off. I was thinking we might lose an opportunity to get back to where we were pre dating just because both of us assumed the other wanted to be left alone.

But anyway I take into account all you’ve said, I don’t want to disturb him if he’s trying to work on himself, or make him feel awkward, and though I’ve genuinely taken the time to check my motives, and I really am not just trying to get him back etc. I suppose there is still the potential to get hurt again.

I thought I’d let you know what happened since I often wonder when I’m reading other people’s posts how things turned out.

I thought about it for a few days and realised if I didn’t reach out I’d keeping thinking about whether I should or shouldn’t every time I was in the area and that probably wouldn’t be good for me. Lane I took your advice and just said hey how have you been? We chatted a bit back and forth, and he was friendly, engaging so I said I was in the area if he felt like getting a drink. He said he would really like to eventually and to try and be friends but he’d been seeing someone for a couple of weeks and didn’t think it would be fair to her so early on. I wished him luck and deleted his number.

I think it was a good thing for me to hear (though I felt a bit weird at first), it was a confusing, messed up ending and I hadn’t got much closure, the staying friends idea made it easier to accept without trying to unravel what exactly had happened but as time went by I think the expectation we might hang out again stopped me forgetting about him entirely (though it was enough that I could start to be interested in other people).

I just wanted to say that incase someone finds themselves in the same situation, I do think it was a good thing for me to draw a line under it, but if the same thing had happened a month ago before I’d started to move on I think I would have been really miserable.

I think things wrapped up in quite a comprehensive way,maybe not what you hoped for but in retrospect it’s the perfect closure..
Wish all the best ❤️❤️