Dear Anna,

I went back and read the whole timeline of your relationship and breakup with him, on Page1 of this thread, and I must say I’ve changed my mind about him. I now think that you indeed were not misinterpreting his signs, but that he was actually leading you astray with his behavior after the breakup.

I am so mad at him for not having kept his distance with me, while we both said to each other that keeping our distance would be the best attitude as it was obviously way to painful for us to stay around.

It seems to me that it was painful for you to stay close to him, but not for him. He in fact told you that the perfect setup for him was being just friends: “He told me that for him the perfect set-up was back in February when we were just “friends”. This “friendship” involved a lot of physical touching and closeness, a lot of hard flirting, as you said, and I think you rightfully felt it was more than friendship. After the breakup he wanted to return to this kind of “friendship”, which he knew was painful for you because you had feelings for him and you told him so.

He not only sought your proximity but even told you he still has feelings for you. He did that on April 8^th, when you’ve heard a rumor that he is dating another girl: “On the 8^th of April we got into a 5h conversation at our student pub because a girl told me about him and another girl, she thought they were dating since a long time and that he cheated on me. He promised me that nothing happened between them. However, he admitted that he felt the chemistry between the two of them and that he kept his distance out of respect for me. We also discussed about the breakup and he finally admitted some important things: 1) he was scared that he lost me for nothing because he was simply overthinking and that he actually had feelings for me 2) it was more about him thinking he couldn’t reciprocate my energy 3) he wanted to stay friends with me but I told him that it wouldn’t be possible, not when so much feelings were involved“.

What he admitted about his feelings about you seems misleading. On one hand he said he was scared that he lost you, and that he “had feelings” for you. However, he didn’t want a relationship with you, but just to remain friends. Which you refused because it was too painful for you.

Nevertheless, after this conversation of yours, he was often seeking you, wanting to talk to you and spend time with you. He once even grabbed your arm so you would talk to him: On the 10th of May, we bumped into each other and I told him that yeah, it’s stupid to avoid each other to what he responded “yes, I was kind of hoping that you would come and talk to me”. From this moment, we started to talk again, be around each other, bursting out of laugh as we used to do. During an event, he even said to one of his friends that he was going to stay with me and one of my friends instead of going with his own friend to join other people. At another event, we stayed talking for somehow 1h just the two of us and when a girl came, he ignored her. Finally, during a ball, I was ignoring him but when he saw that I wasn’t going to talk to him, he literally grabbed my arm to start a conversation with me”.

I understand why you felt angry at him and wanted him to stop this game: “I couldn’t keep doing this masquerade with him. I decided that I wanted to talk to him about the situation. He avoided me.” He didn’t want to talk about his behavior though.

But the biggest disappointment was yet to come, because it turned out all that while that he was trying to get close to you and be “friends” with you, and you were hoping that maybe you have a future together, he was in fact dating another girl, unbeknownst to you. He started dating her on April 17/18, and you only found out in the beginning of June, after the party where you stormed between the two of them. During the months of April and May, when he was trying so hard to get you to communicate with him and be “friends” again – he was actually dating this other girl. All this time he made you believe he has feelings for you. No wonder you were furious when you found out about it (I was enraged, I went to see him, asked him what was going on, what game he was playing.)

When you confronted him about it, he told you that he has feelings for her but doesn’t know what it means to him (He told me that he had feelings for her but he didn’t know the meaning of what they had and if it even had a meaning for him). He also said that he didn’t have feelings for you anymore. Since that day – when you discovered the truth about him – he started ignoring you, not greeting you, not even acknowledging your presence with a nod. Suddenly he turned from a warm, fuzzy friend into a cold stranger…

Maybe I am too strict, but I now believe he isn’t as innocent and confused as I previously thought he was. I mean, I could imagine that he told you back in April that he still has feelings for you because he felt guilty for not being able to reciprocate your feelings, and so he said it not to appear cold and heartless. I can imagine he said some things he didn’t really mean because he might have felt pressured. But the fact that he insisted on being friends with you when he knew this would only hurt you, and also hiding the fact that he is dating someone else while fooling around with you – that’s a bit too much. I believe it’s plain selfish.

I don’t know how you are viewing it, but this is my impression at the moment…