why is he ignoring me

[Atticus9292012]

I have a guy friend I have posted about before. It's a lot to try and explain again. We dated a long time ago and reconnected as friends a couple of months ago. Well I misread his signals and made a move on him. He rejected me basically saying he would date me, but he didn't think it would work. That was well over a month ago. We hang out a lot. I can tell he is attracted to me. He told me I am beautiful one night, but I have just tried to accept this is all it will ever be and tried to date others. Well, I had a date (he ended up ghosting right before our date). Well, somehow my friend found out about my upcoming date and asked to hang out with me a whole bunch last week. He asked me about it one night I was over and even talking about it in front of him he seemed bothered by it. I asked him, like I would any friend, if he had any love interests, and he said no and changed the subject. Well my 100lb dog has a really bad ear infection. I asked if he would accompany me to the vet and he went. My dog is hard, not impossible, for me to control in a setting like that so I try to get a helper. We there for two hours! As a thank you I took him some beer over to his place and we ended up hanging out for several hours. I kept catching him staring at me (not the first time) and I'd be like "what?" And he'd say "nothing." Well, I had to get up early so I left. He asked me to text him the next day and hang out again. I said I would. I told him I had my date so it might not work out and his face like totally changed... he was just like oh okay well let me know. I sent him two text messages that he never responded to. I didn't think much of it, because he was supposed to get a new roommate so maybe things got busy. Well, I found out a friend of mine committed suicide last night and needless to say I was upset. I texted my friend and still nothing. He is terrible at texting so him responding delayed is normal, but he has never not responded to me before. I feel annoying reaching out again, but at this point the ball is clearly in his court. I just don't know what to think. If he's mad, he has no right to be. He rejected me. I am trying to respect his decision. Sometimes I think I'm in love with him, but I refuse to make a move after what happened before.

[preraph]

He wasn't very interested until he had competition. And now he's getting his hair up because you're dating someone and trying to teach you a lesson and get the upper hand by not returning your texts. Don't do anything else until you hear from him.

 

I was in love with (fake name) Mark, who hung around for 3 years and would tell me about girls who were "his type" and make it clear I wasn't his type, but I stayed busy socially, and every time he saw me with someone, he'd make a beeline for me (out at gigs and stuff) and see if he could take my attention away from them. Once this guy was flirting while Mark was playing just maybe 12 feet away. This Brit guy from our expanded circle was holding my hand across the table just flirting and being charming and I was all dressed up in vintage dress and big floppy fedora so it was obvious I was on the prowl -- and Mark got himself so worked up he started roughly tearing at his guitar and broke a string while the singer looked on in amazement.

 

Later, I moved on from him when I fell for another guy, and we were out in public a lot dating. We were at a bar gig and Mark just happened to be there. Me and bf were smooching some. Mark literally walked on top and over tables and chairs to get to me the quickest way possible and then once there didn't know what to do but was just trying to see if he could usurp all my attention. Then after that, he started coming over to my apartment to "borrow the shower" and made sure he was just coming out of the shower when my date arrived. My date was very cool. I'd told him the whole story right up front.

 

Another time, I went on a drunken tear with the guy who'd been the drummer of Mark's band before Mark was ever in it. He'd just come back in town, so Mark didn't know him except to say hello, but the guy had a wild reputation. In fact, he'd come by my apartment a day or two earlier to flirt and the "band police" (two of Mark's band members) came over there and drug him away, alarmed, envisioning the bedlam that would ensue, I guess. The next day after the crazy night, I went to work, and Mark was waiting there, pretending to be amused and interrogating me. People still talk about that night and the fallout and in fact it's in a novel. There are people I'll see at reunions who only remember me because of that night. Poison ivy was involved. I angrily told the drummer, when he brought it up that that's what he got for sleeping with strange girls (me:sick:). The chips were stilling falling from that one and in all directions a decade later.

 

Mark never did really want me. He just didn't want anyone else to have me -- and he had some personal problems that really made him too insecure to fully take me on, some childhood abuse I'd find out 10 years later.

 

Competition gets guys going. You can't take it too seriously though.

 

30 years and a divorce later, he came to see me and stayed a few days, but at the time I was trying to resurrect a different old flame. I think he was finally ready for me, worked through the things that kept him from being able to be with me at the time. But he had bad alcohol problems no one would want to cope with that had destroyed his marriage. So he was "on" when he was sober and "gone" when drinking. If he'd stayed sober long enough, who knows....

[Atticus9292012]

Thanks for your story. It definitely sounds eerily similar to my situation. It makes me sad that "mark" never got it together. Definitely puts my friend into perspective. I keep telling myself if my friend were into me he'd make me his....and I kinda thought for awhile he really cared about me as a person, just not that way. Honestly, if he really did care about me as a friend, he wouldn't have ignored me last night. I was pretty upset and I knew he'd be awake.....or at least say something when he got my message. I've decided I need to try to stay away from my connections to him for awhile and I am not reaching out again. Just makes me sad that all this chemistry and connection is wasted and to him this is a game. I feel like I'm going through a breakup of a relationship that never happened.

[preraph]

Mark literally drove me crazy. If the other guy hadn't come along when he did, I was headed for the loony bin. Sometimes they have a real problem keeping them from taking a chance with a woman they really care about. I don't think Mark was able to "risk it" with me, but I also know I wasn't his ideal physical type and that that, unfortunately, had a lot to do with it too. But he just never went away until he got his heart broken. He recovered at my apartment, then realized he'd put me though what he was going through for perhaps the first time. Then he asked me to drive him to the airport to move to L.A. I wouldn't. In 10 years' time I was there on business and found him in a bar, on the advice of his wife. It was sort of like when Clint Eastwood comes to town. He had sorted out his past by then and his wife was a normal type, not the type his insecurities used to drive him to.

 

Just don't put your life on hold for that guy. Stay busy and try not to dwell. I know it's hard. I wrote reams of poetry and was just in so much pain. It cracked my heart.