This year I pursued someone romantically for the first time. The experience was really confusing to me, it has been 3 months now since we broke it off and on retrospection few things have started making sense to me.
It was him testing me if I could survive the conflict, if I was the one putting efforts for both of us, stick to him through the constant push and pull he was making me go through. It was so mentally draining for me. I would get nothing from his side. Just an echo. It almost felt like he was not an active participant in this whole thing we had going on, he would just sit back and observe how I would react.
At the end, I think he just needed peace so for breaking it off he said all he wants from me is a fwb/a relationship without attachment. And that response from him helped me move on in forward direction. I’m still griefing the loss, but at the back of my mind I always knew we were not compatible, at the same time I still wanted us to happen.
Looking back at it, it got me thinking is it okay to test people, put them in difficult situation to see if they’ll stick to you till the end in order to see if going in a relationship with them will be worth it?
Me being on the recieveing end of it, i found it very unsafe. The inconsistent behavior, the mixed signals, the “butterflies”, having to just rely on my gut feeling he likes me back but in reality he has never confessed how he felt in words/concrete way, but still pursuing him cause I like him and I want us to happen.