Whether he’s just being polite, my own insecurity

I met a guy online, and we talked and met and I really like him though it’s relatively new. But for the summer, we’re not going to see each other in person at all due to an internship putting one of us in different cities, neither of us is likely to go looking for other people though. I thought about having the dtr conversation, but didn’t think it was a good idea with everything going on and with being apart for the summer. We kind of had an awkward non-discussion about what to do over the summer, we gently floated ending things and he was very opposed, so I proposed keeping in touch instead, he jumped on that. So I was genuinely prepared to keep in touch and be chill about it, maybe just as friends for the time being—this all sounds so nice in theory to me. Reasonably, I understand and don’t expect a boyfriend-level of communication, but I’m realizing in real life this chill communication is harder for me than I thought.

It’s been over a month, and he’s starting conversations less these days, but when I start he’ll continue the conversation. I’m working in a male-dominated field, and I’m not afraid to take initiative, and I realize that sometimes one person will initiate messaging more and here it looks it’s me, but at the same time it makes me insecure. Neither of us are the type to be glued to our phones, so our last texting conversation just lasted over a week where we’d send each other messages here and there a few times each day. But since he doesn’t initiate often, I really can’t tell if he actually wants to talk to me, or if I’m dragging the conversation along and he’s just too polite to wrap up the conversation. He’ll add jokes, give long responses, share personal information, and ask me questions, so sometimes when I decide that I’ll just let the conversation end, I don’t because it would be outrightly rude to just end the conversation after he just said something long and thoughtful. Not that this is extremely uncommon with guys, but in terms of personalities, I’m the more social one and he seems content to be less social in general (he seems to want or need to talk with others less than me in general). So I don’t know if I’m annoying an introvert who’s too polite to tell me he doesn’t want this constant contact every time I choose to pick the conversation back up when it might slow down. Note: he does this too, change the topic or ask a question when the conversation seems to be potentially ending. He’s definitely very polite and considerate, so I don’t know if this is just him trying to not seem cold or mean, regardless of his interest in me. Judging from my impressions of him, I see him as someone who would continue talking with me and even giving long responses only out of niceness. What do you guys think?

I know from my end that I’m reluctant to end conversations because while he’ll message me when there’s a conversation going, he reaches out to initiate not that often. I sometimes catch myself wondering if after 3 or 5 days of constant contact, if he’s thinking like “that’s enough,” since once again he overall seems to need or want social interaction with friends or anyone less than I do. Each time he sends something longer or personal or asks a question, I tell myself “if he were not interested or didn’t enjoy talking, he wouldn’t send this,” but every time he sends something that doesn’t keep the conversation going, I wonder if he just wants me to stop talking. I think I have a bit of an anxious attachment style, and in general with my interactions with friends, colleagues, bosses, etc, there’s always a voice in the back of my mind that wonders if I made a bad impression, if I just annoyed someone, etc. I wonder if he sees that insecurity from my end and is just being nice and going along with it even though he personally might not want to keep up conversation for days on end?

I don’t know how to put my dilemma into words clearly. The rational side of me wants this: for us to keep up friendly, chill contact and see if we can pick up once we’re back together after the summer. The insecure side of me apparently can’t handle this. The intention was not to expect us to talk every day, but I’ll always wonder if he’s just taking it chill like we decided, or if he lost interest. And when we do talk for over a week on end, I wonder if he’s thinking like “she’s not my girlfriend why are we doing this?” And I do think maybe it might be too much for him, I bet even with his best friends, unless maybe a coworker or something, he doesn’t talk with them as much as he might with me. Or at least not so much small talk on end.

Thanks for reading this far, it’s hard for me to talk about insecurities and thoughts and put them into words. Normally people don’t see this at all, I’m a pro at appearing put together and most people who saw me would think my life is very much together, but on the inside it’s not quite that way. It feels weird to write this, because my first instinct is to hide any vulnerability. I appreciate your listening.