I (F29) entered into a situationship with my friend (M32) of 7 years. I ended up wanting more and he didn’t and essentially he slow faded me until I got the hint and called things off. He didn’t exactly try and fight for the little we had but he did make it clear that he hoped we could stay friends. I said maybe in the future one day but i couldn’t do it at that moment.
As we’ve been friends for years, we have many mutual friends and saw each other in passing but never really spoke.
After not talking for a couple months he called me one night in tears. He had been going through a hard time mental health wise and said he missed me and wanted to reach out to see how I was and if I was open to hanging out. I pretended to have phone issues and hung up shortly after.
A couple weeks later I ran into him at a mutual friends bday party. He was obviously pretty drunk and I could tell he wanted to talk because he tried multiple times to join group convos I was a part of but I didn’t really acknowledge him. He came up to me later in the night and after an awkward pause all he said was that he loved me and valued me deeply. I told him I valued him too and then went to go find my friends. My initial thoughts on him saying this was that it felt manipulative as he never said he loved me before. In hindsight, it may have been genuine but who really knows.
Since then he has texted and called multiple times to see how I’m doing and if i want to hang out, get lunch, etc sometime. I either don’t respond or change the subject and then make up an excuse to get off the phone.
It does seem like he genuinely wants to be friends and I do find myself missing the completely platonic years we had as friends. I’m just not sure it’s a good idea for me. I’ve never been a big believer in the idea that exes can be friends and at the end of the day I was really hurt by the slow fading. On the other hand there are times I feel like I’m withholding my friendship as punishment for him slow fading me and that feels immature but it also just feels like I’m setting boundaries. I guess I’m having trouble differentiating between the 2.
So would you consider this boundary setting or emotional withholding? Do you think he genuinely wants to be friends or are lingering feelings on my part just making me perceive things this way?