I feel relieved. The guy I talked about before? He...was actually leading me on. It finally became clear to me when we were having a conversation over text, he texted me saying "I wouldn't be against it, though" talking about a relationship, and when I responded with, "Us...like being a thing?" he ghosted me the rest of the night.
The next day he texts, "Sorry if what I said made it awkward." But after I reassured him, he ghosted me again.
When I told my friends, they were all united in telling me that, yeah, that's leading me on. And the worst part is this has been going on for about 7 months now! Every time I tell myself that he's never going to be in a relationship with me, so I should just move on, he tries to butt in again and show me affection to get a reaction. I think I'm honestly just an adrenaline rush to him at this point.
ANOTHER THING- he tried holding my hand while I was telling him to stop doing this, and that we're better off as friends. I slowly let him go, though, so that he wouldn't get any ideas.
I feel better now. No longer do I have to feel obligated to like this guy who clearly isn't going to be in a relationship with me. I don't have to tell myself to move on, only for him to pull me back in.
But then when I was trying to explain it to my/his friends, he would walk into the conversation and I'd stop so I wouldn't be talking about him in front of him. Apparently, he doesn't like people talking about his business. But it's my business too! I'm not trying to spread his deepest darkest secrets or anything, but these friends have been seeing the tension between us and deserve to at least know what's going on. I dunno. Some of my friends want me to cut him off entirely, but I want to see how just being friends works first.
Sorry for the rant.