First, I want to preface this by saying that I am usually a ponder silently until someone notices something is off kind of person…so going to anyone (even an online forum) is huge for me. And that I am also sorry for the incoming word vomit.
I dated this guy when I was 17-18, a senior in high school (he was a freshman in college). It became much more serious much faster than I expected, but I jumped into the commitment. We were young, doing long distance part of the time, and absolutely infatuated with each other. I developed deep love and care for him and always wanted it to be him that I ended up with. He always reciprocated that to me, and we talked about our future plans often. Our families and friends all truly believed we would end up marrying one another.
My first month of college freshman year (his sophomore year), our communication was a struggle. I was adjusting to a new schedule and a new life, and balancing that with the relationship was difficult. We ended up parting ways that same month and although I saw it coming, it did devastate me. He initiated the breakup call, and I really just said “okay, friends it is.” For the next 3 years, we’d do our own thing and never reach out to one another—we’d occasionally see each other at mutual events at home, but generally avoided speaking or being near one another because it felt as if I didn’t know how to address him.
Fast forward to my senior year of college—he is graduated and working a full time job in his college town. In the fall, I begin thinking of him again + start to consider just reaching out to see how he is and how his life is (we’d been broken up for 3-ish years at this point). In a series of serendipitous events, I run into his mom when I’m home one weekend and she tells me what he’s been doing. I took that as a sign to reach out and texted him—we had a great conversation going and it was clear we have both grown up quite a bit. Suddenly, mid-conversation, he stops responding. My first thought is that “okay, he must not want to talk to me. I’ll leave it be and not push.”
I’d go on to wish him a Happy Thanksgiving and he wished it back. We left it at that. We didn’t speak again after that until this week.
Last weekend, we saw each other at a mutual event at home but again, didn’t speak or acknowledge one another. Based on conversations with friends who were also there, it was pretty obvious that the both of us were looking at one another throughout the event and trying to stay out of each other’s way. I spoke to many of his family members there who recognized and stopped me to say hello.
After seeing him but not speaking, I said “I guess we’ll never speak again” and went on about my week…until my birthday. He texted me a happy birthday message (the first birthday message he’s sent me since we dated years ago). I asked him how he was and we started up a conversation about our work and about the event we were both at as if we talked regularly. I realized that I felt truly happy to be talking to him, and have missed having him in my life all this time. He was bringing up new things to talk about, responding to my messages fully, and it was great…until he just out of the blue didn’t respond anymore mid-conversation.
I am now feeling a couple of things:
1) I’d still really like to get to know him again, and I enjoy sharing conversation with him.
2) Wondering if it’s something I say or do that makes him stop responding…I thought it was a fluke the first time but now I don’t know.
It might be worth noting that neither of us have seriously been with anyone else since our relationship—I had a failed talking stage and I think he may have been on one date…but we’ve both remained single.
If you’ve made it to the end of my word vomit, thank you for even taking the time to read it.
In summary: I am starting to feel a little butterfly of feelings and curiosity again but I don’t know how I would even approach it if this weird stopping mid-conversation thing keeps persisting. Any insight would be incredibly helpful (and snarky comments about how dumb or pointless this is would not).