I should have just left it

I shouldn't have contacted him at all.

But I said I'd let him know about the tickets. I waited as long as I thought was fair.

What screws me up is not that he isn't speaking to me, although I find that pretty hurtful. Most of the time I don't think about it so it's not a big deal.

What screws me up is when we DO speak, and he starts out clipped but responsive, then drops down to one words, no capitalisation and no punctuation, then just stops replying altogether. You know what's rude? Messages into a void. You're done talking, you say goodbye. That's not difficult and goes a long way towards not making me feel like a blight on your day.

I don't understand the issue.
I want to be able to.

I understand taking a week, two weeks even. I understand getting your head together, having a sook, working out where you fit into the world and the relationship after a change.

But we had an understanding. I thought we did, anyway. I would have thought that as the person who was broken off with, as opposed to one doing the breaking up, I'd be the one looking for time and space.

I want to understand the rationale but I'm not allowed to know so I'm kind of left to my own interpretation of events which is probably completely wrong.

Part of this conversation was going to include "and you know if you decide otherwise, let me know" but then I realised how stupid that is... it's not going to happen and as a gesture all it does is make me look in equal parts pushy, desperate and/or naive instead of how I intended it - as a genuine offer of, if you change your mind, I'd still love to spend this time with you.

Pretty hurtful to think that all these years of being friends, and all those months of being more, isn't even worth just saying "I'm gonna go now". Being straight up is something I always appreciated with him but I'm not seeing it now.

"I guess I'm still not gonna hear from you for a while?"
"probably not"

I would need a flow chart to describe how cutting that is.

I'm not asking for an explanation, I just want to know if I'm ever going to hear from you again, at what point I can start inviting you to things (you haven't RSVPd to my birthday either way, and I don't know if that means you know you're not going to come and you don't want to hurt my feelings or commit to not coming or heaven forbid let me know where you stand on it, or you think you probably aren't going to come but you haven't decided and are leaving wiggle room. Knowing you, my theory is that you're pretty sure you don't want to come, you just don't want to put that out there).
I asked you because obviously you're important to me and I'd like you there. But I can deal if you don't want to come. Life marches on, I just think it's nice to include people I care about at stuff like that so they can come if they want to, rather than assuming one way or another on your behalf.
I don't want to have to ask, I don't want to be that person always hassling someone who doesn't want to hear from me.

And I don't want to feel like talking to me is such an insult, or a hassle, or unwelcome for whatever reason that even saying "okay well I'm off, catch you later" is one line of communication too much.

___

I hope things get better. I worry that that line came off as sarcastic or insincere but it wasn't.

I would like to have you in my life and I hope you're okay.

"Same to you"

I'm having a blast this last couple of days. There's nothing to get better for me. For some reason I found that as affronting as the rest of the conversation.

I guess we just deal with things differently.

I don't count many people among my friends. I have a lot of acquaintances, but not so many friends. When I do have a friend I work at that friendship. I try and strengthen it, and protect it, and work at it and prolong it.
Life gets messy and life gets awkward and things come between people.
But only if we let them.

Sometimes it's time to call time and you gotta know when that time is.
But most of the time awkward is of our own making. All of the time drifting apart is. I'm as guilty of it as the next person. But if I care about someone then I don't like to actively facilitate it.

If he thinks it's time to call time on the friendship, then I'd rather just know. We've had the bandaid discussion before. If not, then it's not hard to be civil and polite enough to say goodbye when you're done talking.

If he doesn't think it's time, which is obviously my preference, then take the time away from each other, but be a little less "okay you've used up your allotment of messages now" about it.

____

I  just reread this and it comes across pretty harshly.
I don't mean it to.

I really, really, REALLY just want the best for him. All of my heart wishes him nothing but happiness and luck.

I guess I just find these conversations hard, I find it hard not to take them personally.

And I find the not knowing hard.

I find it hard to reconcile the amazing times we had with the sudden silence and stilted conversation if we do talk.

We always said, you always said, that the friendship would always be there. That it would never be in jeopardy.

I just want the best for him and I wish him every happiness.

I just find being shut out hurtful, especially when it's just a couple of lines tapering off into silence.

It hurts me very deeply because it's so far removed from even three weeks or a month ago. But I thought we both knew this was on the cards - indeed, that was your whole reason for breaking it off as I understand it.

But I'll take a deep breath and I'll just get on with it.