Ghosted by my (21f) situationship (23m). Confused and upset

Hi everyone.

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So I (21f) met this guy (23m) in the first few weeks of this semester of college. We clicked immediately, we both have really similar senses of humour and had really similar experiences, we understood each other so well… it was one of these real ‘we finish each other’s sentences!’ relationships. We ended up hooking up the first night we met, I decided to text him afterwards because I figured what have I got to lose, he responded, and after that we began to meet up every week, at least once but as time went on sometimes twice a week, or I’d spend two nights in a row at his place, that kinda thing. We would go out for dinner together, hang out and get drinks, watch movies together and hook up but we both made it clear that we liked each other more than just sex (I made a joking comment once about him just using me for my body and he got quite upset about it).

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We had talked about our relationship on multiple occasions and he made it clear that he was not in the right place for a relationship right now which I was fine with and initially felt the same. However, he did various things throughout our situationship (I don’t know what else to call it? The time we spent together, I guess) that really gave me mixed signals. On more than one occasion he got upset and apologetic about not being able to be in a relationship with me (I also didn’t want a relationship at this stage), one night we were out for dinner and he (in the one night): suggested me going to visit him in his family home for a weekend, told me that he wanted to take me to our college ball, and suggested numerous ‘dates’ we could go on together.

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Now, after about a month and a half into all this he confided in me that his mother was really sick and was probably going to die soon. He would go home to visit her on the weekends and not text me the entire time (completely fine with me, I didn’t expect any messages). The night after he invited me to go back to his home for a weekend, he received some bad news about her and got rather upset (this was one of the nights where he got upset about not being able to be in a relationship with me also). I felt like the conversation didn’t go great as we had both been drinking and I always felt so helpless and like I never knew what to say when he would talk to me about his mom. So, when I got home, I messaged him just checking in. That was Wednesday and I didn’t hear from him until the next Monday. Even though he doesn’t really owe me any messages I did get a bit upset about this as I was: (i) worried about our conversation the night before as I felt I didn’t handle it very well; and (ii) feeling a bit of emotional whiplash from the lovely night we’d had two days before where he was asking me on all these dates and going from that to 0 communication was a lot to handle.

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The next week was the week of my birthday and so the night before it we went out for drinks to celebrate, we were just chatting and he made some off-hand comment about how his exes used to constantly ghost him and how much it upset him because he has attachment issues. After this I took the opportunity to tell him that I was actually quite upset about him leaving me on delivered for so long the last week, to which he apologised profusely, emphasised and told me that yes, his mother is really ill but he felt like it wasn’t really an excuse, especially considering that he knew how I felt. I accepted his apology and we went back to his place and spent my birthday morning together the next day. He made me breakfast, we went to classes together, and that night he came to my birthday party and met all my friends (introduced as a friend from my course but most of them put 2 and 2 together and figured out he was the guy whose place I was staying at twice a week every week). I got super drunk at my birthday and ended up going back to his place (not to have sex, but more so because I was too drunk to make my own way home). The next morning he went off to class by himself, texted to make sure I was okay, then went home for the weekend and, as usual, didn’t message — but I had come to expect this at this point.

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The next week he told a mutual friend and I that he had gotten more bad news about his mom, and he also barely texted all week but I figured he had a lot going on, and also it was coming to the end of the semester by this point so he had all the family stuff plus exams/final assignments to worry about so I didn’t get too worried about it. At the end of the following week I messaged him about a college-related thing (had asked some others in our course but they weren’t sure so I just said I’d ask him) and he never responded. That was 3 weeks ago now. The week after, I met him at an event for an extra-curricular we’re both involved in and he made some comment about having his phone on DND and not using his phone for anything except checking in with family. I did think this reaction was a bit extreme, but I have never been through anything even remotely similar so who am I to tell him how to grieve?

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As I said, this was 3 weeks ago. I did miss him terribly but I was trying to give him space. He hadn’t posted anything on socials (he used to post on his IG stories semi-regularly) so I really did think he was just completely gone off all social media.. until this weekend.

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Last night I was scrolling through the dating app that we matched on and trying to answer old messages (college has been crazy busy the last few weeks), when I saw that he had changed all his pictures, and completely redone his profile. I was a bit shocked but I figured, hey he’s probably going through a rough time and needs some validation. Then I was on Instagram today and saw a few memes with ‘liked by \[his username\]’ under them. So he’s clearly using social media again.

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Look, I know we were never in a relationship, and he made his intentions clear from the beginning. I never expected us to be in a relationship (even though towards the end of it I did start to develop real feelings for him), but it seems like we have gone from 100 to 0 and I just feel so confused. I know ghosting happens all the time, but usually after a few dates, not after crying to someone about how you wish you could give them a relationship, right? He told me about his heartbreak and told me that he didn’t want that to happen to me, yet here he is doing exactly what happened to him, to me. Whenever he disappeared for the weekends he would always apologise and offer an excuse, so it seems so strange that he has just dropped off the face of the earth without saying anything. I’m racking my brains trying to figure out what I did. Did I say something when I was drunk on my birthday? But he was so nice and normal with me the next day, and surely if I did something bad enough that he went from ‘I really really like you’ to ‘I never want to talk to you again’ he would have told me…?

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Even typing this out I just feel so pathetic. I really thought that this guy was different, but have I just been played by another fuckboy? Part of me wants to text him just to be like WTF happened here because I feel like he would understand my perspective, but maybe all of his empathy was just bullshit. Was this all just a game? And I do understand that what’s happening with his mom complicates things a bit, but if rejuvenating his Tinder profile is a bigger priority than apologising to the girl he ghosted after telling her he wouldn’t ghost her, I don’t really know how much more ‘but his Mom is sick’s I have left in me.

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I know we weren’t in a relationship but I didn’t realise that gave him the right to deprive me of basic respect.

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Tl;dr: situationship I spent 2 months with ghosted me out of nowhere. Replies got slow because his mom is sick but I’ve seen him active on socials again so it’s clear he just doesn’t want to talk to me.. confused about what went wrong