Am I crazy?

[KimberlyDimberly]

Hello. I am new here and this is my first post. Sorry if Im ranting but this has been bothering me. I am 21 and last fall I met a boy in one of my classes- lets call him Rich. He asked me out in January. I went on a few dates with him, not expecting it to go anywhere really because I was leaving at the end of February to study abroad in another country until the end of June. However, he seemed to like me a lot so I had hopes that we'd pick it up off where we left it when I came back. But, he wanted to talk to me over there and we ended up talking alot and we got attached. I guess we werent official boyfriend/girlfriend the majority of the time that I was there, but we pretty much were since he considered me his gf. Since we survived through 4 1/2 months just talking I thought he was a keeper, and dont you think so? and it was good for me to take things slow and in a way, just talk for some time. He kept saying I was special and thats why he waited for me. He is very sweet and nice to me and by far the most attractive person Ive dated.

 

Im touchy about this Rich's ex I guess. They dated in highschool and for a few months 1 1/2 years ago. 2 months before Rich asked me out, my roommate told me she heard him (my roommate use to date his roommate) say that he had a hard time getting over this girl. They broke up due to long distance. At this point I didnt care, I vaguely knew he liked me a bit but I wasnt interested. In April when I was abroad, after I got back from a trip, I saw that his ex wrote on his Facebook wall. Rich has complained about his ex, saying that he hates it when she writes on his wall and that she just "feels the need to talk to him." But when he IMed me and started explaining himself right away after I returned- he said that "her boyfriend broke up with her and shes falling apart. she asked me to spend time together and I couldnt say no because I have the whole compassion thing going." I said to him "Im sure if I could see her profile Id see u saying something flirty" (I could tell by their wall posts) and he said "oh youll laugh but she asked me to say that to make her ex bf jealous" and that he only cared about me and that she was crazy and not in the funny crazy way like me. He called her an "old friend"

 

Its a small world, because my best friend at home use to leave near Rich and his ex gf and she and his ex did dance together. When I told my friend about this, she offered that I could go into her account and look at his exes' Facebook page to see if he was lying. It felt wrong and that it was like I was stalking him, but I felt something was off so I did it anyway. I found out alot. 1) He wasnt lying- he said something flirty and offered to go shopping to go along with his joke I think...and she wrote back and said "shopping sounds great" and a bunch of other guys had written similar things to obviously make her feel better and her bf jealous 2) She is very dependent and needs to have a boyfriend. 3) Rich and her didnt talk for awhile, but they started talking again about 2 weeks before he asked me out in January. 4) she is very pretty. I wouldnt feel threatened usually, I have been told Im beautiful but she obviously has many guys liking her. And I do kinda feel like Rich weighs looks a lot. After Rich's visit with her she wrote she had fun on his wall and called him "bud." I didnt see anything wrong with this situation then and let it go. However, Rich deleted his Facebook account a few weeks later saying it was because people tag him in unflattering photos and I got the feeling it was cause of his ex, not sure because she was just annoying him or he still kinda liked her.

 

Right when I got home from abroad, Rich came to the beach for a few days with my family on vacation 2 hrs away from where he was living at home. We talk on the phone a few times a week. He decided to move to school to live for the summer and Ive been up to visit him since school is a few hrs closer than his home house and spent 2 days and one night with him this past weekend.

 

The ex thing came up again. I feel guilty because I feel like Im being a jealous crazy stalker. He went to shower and I wanted to check my email. He handed me his computer and when I typed in the website, his email inbox popped up (I think he checked it right before and forgot to log out). I couldnt help but see the Titles of some of his messages. One was a Facebook notification saying his ex sent him a message. I couldnt help myself and clicked on it. It was a message back from April, when she contacted him when her bf broke up and that whole thing and it said "Can you promise me when we're 26/29 that if we're not married we marry each other? Im sick of this dating thing and I think we could work it out and not do the long distance fighting thing" This made me mad and even more mad later when we got a bit tipsy and Rich reactivated his Facebook account (he has been saying he wants to do it so he can say hes "in a relationship" with me, which I could care less about.) He logged in, clicked on his Inbox which said he had 3 new messages, and I was sitting next to him and saw the one I sent awhile ago in late May...but also one earlier from his ex dated: May 7th. I was pretending like I wasnt looking though. When he was getting ready to log out after he added me as a girlfriend, I said "Hey dont you see you have messages?" He said "Oh, Ive already read them. Some are from my ex girlfriend. She was single for a little bit and sent messages saying Hey whatchu doing? and I said No- Ive got this girl..." I was playing it cool and said "If shes a girl who needs to have a bf be careful, they often have depression or confidence problems." and described my best friend who is exactly like that...and he said "she shouldnt have self image issues because she gets hit on wherever she goes and she now has a new bf who was a cashier that hit on her"

 

Rich deleted that message from her in his email, where he actually reads the Facebook messages and doesnt log into his account- so I dont know what it said. I felt it was kinda weird he deleted that one but not the other one saying we should marry each other.

 

I dont have any complaints about him other than this, he acts like he likes me alot. I dont know if guys just say this, but he has talked about next spring when he graduates early and Im still at my last college semester that we will see each other and even has asked about grad school stuff...and Im going to his sisters wedding in the fall...but basically, I am feeling a bit guilty because I feel like Ive greatly invaded his privacy and I get the feeling hes not over her. I dont think hes using me as a rebound girl- but I dont like the idea of him still having feelings for her and its making me feel conflicted about him sometimes. Am I crazy for feeling this way? Am I reading way too much into this? Some days I dont think about it because I think I am overreading it, but other days I dont think I am.