Dear birds of a feather:

“One good thing is we will finally catch up in person in a month (instead of two months). He said ok to my proposal of an earlier date, but proposed a 45-minute time window. I am not sure how to make sense of that. Last time when we caught up in person a month ago, we had chatted for over two hours“- it reads like you are chasing/ pursuing him for contact, and he is trying to give you a part of what you want (45 min, in this case), but not more than that (2 hours).

“Yes, we used to share a lot of our most private thoughts and feelings when we were still in the same social circle“- reads like you felt very comfortable sharing your most private thoughts and feelings with him. It may be that from one point on, it became uncomfortable (a burden) for him to listen to you/ read your texts, maybe to comfort/ counsel you..?

“I’ve told him recently that I’m not feeling well and may not reach out for a while. When I did finally feel better and send a message, he sent me a long text message and said he was so glad to hear that. But when I reached out again a couple days later, his responses became much more formal and distant. I am just not sure where I stand sometimes and I want to know“- if while not feeling well, you didn’t reach out to him for a long time (a week, or weeks perhaps), maybe he had enough time away from you to recover a genuine interest in you. But after his genuine, long text message, when you contacted him two days later, it was too soon for him, and he was back to formal.

“Most recently, I shared some work struggles with him, but got a long and formal response back which makes me feel that I am talking to a counselor instead of a friend“- when you say that you felt like you were talking to a counselor, do you mean that in his long and formal response, he counseled you, as in giving you advice in regard to your work struggles? Has he give you advice on personal matters as well, recently or in the past?

“I am just not sure how to respond back to his long and formal message? Is this his way of asking me to back off?“- my guess is that yes, he wants you to back off. If I was you, I would no longer initiate contact with him/ I will no longer chase him for contact.

I agree with what you wrote in your original post: “I have this feeling of him not wanting to invest time and energy into this relationship“- seems like you got something very valuable out of the friendship the way it was, more than he got, and that sometime along the way, what you want from him became a burden to him.

Reads like, I am sorry to say, that he doesn’t want to hurt your feelings by overtly rejecting you, so he is.. covertly rejecting you.

I am wondering about something you wrote earlier: “I also feel guilty demanding his attention when he’s busy… Maybe I am too selfish and demanding too much of his attention“- what do you mean by demanding..? And by selfish..?

anita