Dear anita,

Thank you for your reply! I wasn’t sure in how many details I should go so I kept it vague but I’d love to share more details with you.

Let’s begin with the lines “a man I’ve been waiting my whole life to meet… he was honestly exactly the type of person I always imagined myself with” and “Everything about him was fascinating to me”.  I live in a place where people have a very conservative mindset. A lot of people try and fit into a particular mould, for men (especially in my age range) in particular it’s always football, pseudo-patriotism,  I’ve also noticed a lot of these people don’t really have a particular passion they like to follow and that’s alright, but I’ve always wanted to be with somebody motivated and passionate about the things they do. I tell you this to be able to explain exactly why I found my ex so fascinating. But to explain “he was honestly exactly the type of person I always imagined myself with”: I’m naturally a very creative person. I like to draw, to write, I like to create and I wish to find somebody with a similar creative drive. He was exactly that. He was an artist with a passion for art and a wish to pursue art, even though we live in a place where art is not very appreciated by the general public. He was funny and charming, expressed an interest in me and the things I liked, we shared a lot of the same interests, music, fashion, travelling, that was a big one for me since I’ve always wanted to find somebody I could explore the world with. He was gentle and caring, and even for the short time we got to know each other before being romantically involved I felt safe with him and I felt as if we had the potential to build a strong connection as time went on.

“Seeing the way he acted around me, seeing the way he looked at me” – With this one I do feel a bit silly, because I have never had somebody act this way with me before so every time I’ve talked about it I do doubt myself if I wasn’t imagining things. But to answer, he was very gentle with me, very considerate of me and my feelings and he would often check up on me throughout the day. He made almost every first move in our relationship (I did a lot of the texting at first and I was the one who prompted our first date to happen but everything more major after that was him). And whenever he looked at me I felt like he saw only me. It was as if him and I were the only people in the world, his attention was all on me when we were together. The last time we saw each other I remember feeling a difference in the way he kissed me, I felt as if he was relaxing more around me and (saying this out loud feels a bit embarrassing but) when he kissed me I felt like it has a certain longing, a certain want for me to it.

“He started being completely distant. It was completely out of the blue for me, it made absolutely no sense… I also don’t understand it” – I’ve went back to the last times we saw each other again and again and personally I still cannot see a reason. Some of my friends have told me maybe he could have used me as a rebound or as a replacement and that if his current girlfriend started speaking to him around that time (again I’m assuming) then maybe that’s why he broke up with me, since he liked her more than he did me. All I know for sure is that on the last date we went he was acting completely normal, we had dinner, we talked, we laughed, had fun, when I got home and texted him we mad arrangements to see each other again in three days time because we were both busy those days, the next day we continued texting as usual, the day after that he started texting me less, the third day he didn’t text me all day and then he broke up with me. A very sudden progression to me and I have asked myself multiple times did I accidentally force him to see me often, am I the one at fault, but again, he always acted like he wanted to be with me and wanted to spend time with me so it still completely confuses me.

“Recently I have been going out with a colleague of mine, nothing serious, I don’t know if I can even exactly call them dates”; “But I can see in the way he acts toward me that he may have more serious intentions towards me” – The other things I kept vague intentionally but here I truly don’t have all that much to say. It all started with him driving me home and us having some longer fun conversations in his car, then we went on one date(?), again I’m not sure I can even call it that. He expresses an interest in me and tries to keep a conversation going, which isn’t always successful, he acts gentlemanly, opening doors for me, treating me to lunch, driving me from and to my house. To me these are clear signs he has some kind of feelings towards me but he never has stated his real intentions, maybe only vaguely hinted at them before but nothing more.

I’m not sure what more could I add, you said events and dialogue but thinking back on it nothing truly stands out all that much. A lot of the time I spent with my ex before the breakup we would just be getting to know each other and our separate lives, we’d tell each other stories and talk about the things that interested us, and the dates we’d go on were pretty simple, going out for tea/coffee, our last date being more “grand” I suppose, going out to a nice restaurant for dinner and going for a walk afterwards. We planned to go watch ballet on the weekend but he broke up with me before we could do that (it was also his idea by the way). If you have any more questions I’d be glad to answer and if I can think of any more details I’ll add on.

Malakai