By chance one night, I met him. Out at a bar with our own separate friend groups, not searching for anyone or anything. It just so happened that we crossed each others paths. Immediately we hit it off. I’m 22 and he is 29. We didn’t leave each others sight the whole night and ultimately he came home with me ( a little tipsy on both of our parts ). The next morning we sat in bed for 4 hours just talking and laughing and it felt so natural. It felt so right. At the time, he lived about 2 hours away but was in the process of moving towards my area for work sometime in the near future. We continued to talk and continued to talk every single day. The following week he was back in my town and we went on our first date. As we continued to hit it off we kept dating even with the 2 hour living distance. In the beginning (with prior trips/commitments planned) we only saw each other every so often, but continued to talk every single day. He and I both agreed to take things really slow especially with the distance. As we kept dating, we kept developing stronger feelings for each other. I knew I was falling for him and I could sense he was too. He made me nervous because he was everything I ever wanted. He told my friends that I am not like any girl he has ever met and said it in such a way that he truly believes that. We were starting to meet each other’s friends and continuing to develop whatever we were becoming. I went back home to the other side of the country for the holidays for a few weeks and continued to stay in contact every day. At this time he had realized he was accepted to transfer in my town for work like he had been planning to do before we met. It made me even more excited for us progressing once we lived 15 minutes away instead of 2 hours. Once he moved here we saw each other more frequently in the beginning before his job training started. Because of the high intensity training and grueling hours that he was forced to undergo for 3 months at the beginning of his transfer in the law enforcement department, it became hard to spend time with him like I had expected us to. Him working 15 hour days 4 days a week with mandated events and volunteer work for the academy program left very little time for me. I finally reached out to him to see what was going on because he had been distant that week which was odd to me since we had just gone the past 5 months being in constant contact every day. Granted when he was living farther away, his work commitment was not intense and he had more time to offer me. Essentially what it came down to was this:

fighting for a spot for his career had to be his number 1 priority and I totally was on board with that for him. He acknowledged he’d been distant (not sure why he was distant in the first place. busy trying to prioritize and adjust to the move/work? Unsure of what to do about us? I could speculate forever.) he also acknowledged that he didn’t have the time to be fair to me and to our relationship progressing. I suggested to see if after his training if he would want to try again and he basically didn’t want to make any false commitments which I get. While I understood the circumstances, I was devastated. Obviously shattered because I was developing strong feelings for him, but more so because he didn’t have the courage to face me in person to talk to me about this. I felt hurt and disrespected and made me really wonder why he handled it the way he did.

A couple weeks went buy and I was upset. Crying and had not been in contact with him since our decision to stop seeing each other at the time. I was living my life best as I could and showing on social media all of the fun I was having while he was stuck with his work program watching. He sent me a sweet/confusing text on my birthday a week after that and I responded kind of coldly because I can’t understand how he could just handle things the way he did and not take responsibility for it. That birthday message was the first time I had heard from him in 3.5 weeks since we stopped seeing each other. It made me feel good to know to some extent he did/still cares about me but also left me more confused with how he feels about me. After my cold shoulder response he started responding to some of my posts on social media that I sometimes responded to (coldly) or not at all. The following week later I had exciting news about a project that was in the works during the time we were together and he was a huge part of it. Although I posted all over social media about it and my excitement and how proud I was, I felt it was the right thing to do for me to tell him about it personally. Especially because he was a big part of that journey. Immediately I could tell he was excited to be in any contact with me and kept (what was supposed to be a quick little conversation) going for 3 days. Finding ways to keep it going. I didn’t mind, it felt familiar and comfortable. It was confusing though. Over the course of the next few weeks I find myself getting little messages responding to my stories here and there on social media whether it’s light flirting, compliments, or just pointless remarks that don’t authorize a response, he is still lingering around.

MY QUESTION IS THIS.

WHAT DOES HE WANT FROM ME? What is the point of ending things because the timing wasn’t right, not handling them well, not having any closure, not knowing how he handled us going separate ways and then a month after starting to try to talk to me again? His training is almost over.. my roommates think it’s his way of getting his foot in the door and trying to establish some sort of communication with me again. What does he get out of trying to message or lightly flirt with me if he isn’t being direct about what he wants or how he feels? What do I do? It’s confusing and I want to know what this all means, what is going on in his head/ his motives and is there a chance for us to try things again? I think he might be afraid to get to the point with me which is why he keeps just giving me small messages here and there. I could want to try again but would need an apology and and explanation first. Someone help me! What do I do? What does his behavior at this time mean? What does he want from me?