Is my ex still in love with me?
Hello everybody, I was hoping that you could give me some good advice concerning a rather tentative matter I’m very confused about. You see, I have a slight suspicion that my ex still has feelings for me, and I’m quite confused about what to do about it. It is a rather long story, but I hope you will sacrifice a few minutes and give me your honest opinion.
From the beginning – we were not in a relationship for very long, we had been in love with each other for quite a while, but our time together only lasted about four months and then we agreed upon ending it all without any particular reason. Or – that being said – I had my reasons and I suppose he had his as well but he has been ever so reluctant to talk to me about that time and as of today he claims that he doesn’t even remember why he wanted to end it.
We remained friends after the break-up, we were rather young, it hadn’t been that serious and we were the best of friends before with a lot of things in common so we wanted to preserve what was left. I have never told him this, but even today, many years after, I cannot help but think that we missed out on a once in a lifetime opportunity, even though we have both moved on and I have had several other boyfriends since, (I also have one at present whom I would never dream of leaving!) I really think we would have been a great couple if we had been older and less immature. I have accepted that I find him attractive, I cannot change that, but I have kept his friendship because I really enjoy his company as a friend and I would never dream of hurting my boyfriend so I actually torture myself a little bit in secret but I think it is worth it.
The problem started to get a bit confusing after we began studying at the same place this summer. Whenever he sees me he walks over to me and begins a conversation but he seems terribly shy and I just blabber like hell to avoid any awkward silence. He has done this several times and it is sort of weird, because I’m primarily the one who is doing all the talking while he is just standing there without any intention of leaving. We then attended a party together a few weeks ago and we had a really good time, we laughed and talked about funny memories (not related to any romantic themes) and then out of a sudden he tells me that he has found a new girlfriend which was quite shocking since it was the first time he has talked to me about something like that since before we ever became lovers.
Apparently, they have been dating for quite some time but are reluctant to tell people about it, they don’t want to go public and I cannot understand why, but hey – I guess some people are like that. The funny thing is that I have never heard of him having another girl since our break-up even though we share a lot of the same friends, so it was also a little surprising for all of us to learn that he was actually serious about someone again. He was very reluctant to talk about her, but I found out from my sister (yes, I was a bit curious), that we share the same name, the same interests – in fact there are a lot of striking similarities, let’s just leave it at that! This being what it is – and I swear – even though I find him attractive and such, I did not become jealous, I was actually sort of relieved in a way.
To make things even weirder, HE started to act a little jealous that particular night. We were watching a movie and I pointed out that a certain male character was rather good looking and then he started mentioning a lot of female actresses who were “to die for” to quote his exact words. He has never said anything like that before! And at some point I was alone with him and another male friend and I made a rather cruel joke concerning the other friend and I hugged him as an apology. My ex hurried out of the room and when we got back into the living room I began a conversation with him. Then he actually cuddled himself up against one of my best friends – a girl he has always said that he finds very unattractive because of her audacious behavior! She was quite shocked, actually, because she is recovering from a harsh break-up and even though she attempted to push him away he kept on leaning up against her very intimately. He has done this before, he has touched some of my close, female friends – I am the only one he never touches – by playing with their hair or stroking them briefly, and perhaps he just doesn’t know the boundaries of a person’s private sphere, but I thought he went a liiiitle overboard with it this time, especially when you put into consideration that he had just told us about his new girlfriend?!
As if that wasn’t enough he then became very rude towards the friend I had hugged in the other room (this friend has a thing for me, it is quite obvious, but everybody knows I have turned him down like a million times) and he even glared at him with a very vicious look the rest of the evening. When we hugged goodbye (we always hug each other in our group of friends) he felt very reserved and I felt sad about it, as if something had drastically changed between us that night even though I thought it was going so well.
My question to you guys is, do you think he has feelings for me? If you do, do you think they are strong feelings or perhaps just a mutual attraction we both share? Or, do you think I’m reading this all wrong and putting the wrong idea into it. I have to be honest, I usually think that I’m quite good at reading people, but he makes me very confused I really don’t know how to feel about this. :(
