Feeling gutted I messed up my friendship with him

First off i apologies for how long this post is, but i feel it necessary to include all the info. I had a guy friend that i met online 7 years ago. I lived abroad and was interested in moving to the USA where i now live. I messaged people on a forum about the area i wanted to move to and just happened to get talking to this one guy. I asked him about colleges, things to do, places to live etc...and we ended up staying in touch. We talked for about a year every day, and sometimes we had very deep conversations. We had the same taste in music, humor, and take on life. He also had a gf he was on and off with who seemed to really love, but she kept breaking it off and then was back on with him again, and he opened up about that and how much he loved her and felt he was being jerked around. I then moved to the USA finally and he would call daily, text all the time and seemed very interested in me. We kept saying we should meet up, but he was away at college, and then he eventually started dating someone and we lost touch. We got back in touch again recently after a few years via Facebook, and discussed how we always felt a connection with each other and found each other attractive from pictures etc. We started talking and flirting, and when i said i liked him more than just a hook up he said he couldn’t see us ending up together, but he liked our friendship and was sexually attracted to me. He then went pretty silent for a week or so, and i said to him okay lets do a no strings attached thing. He was soon to be moving to another town, and i am at a weird point in my life right now, and wondered if something casual may be enough for me. He came back the next day talking to me, and we started being really suggestive, and said about meeting up to do this. After about 3 days of this, he started to go longer between msgs and i could tell something was up, so we went a whole day without contact, and then i text him and said are you ok and he said yeah just a bad day talk tomorrow, and i got annoyed and said you lead me on and then go silent, and when i reach out i get cut off instantly, do you even care about this friendship, and he said he really does care, but he doesn’t want to be a slut and told me how he had a bad day at work and has family stuff going on. So i feel like we had a pretty good convo and he opened up to me and i said we could always just meet and hang out and if anything happens it happens, and if not then we can just be friends, and he said he liked the idea of that a lot. Then randomly he stops texting me. I didn’t really get how he randomly would go silent and distant, sometimes go days without talking to me, but said he cared and wanted to hang, but never suggested a day. So i text him and said i was getting tired of being led on, and he said he wanted to meet before but feels smothered by me and would text me later becoz he was busy at work... and that was Tuesday afternoon. I said in the message if you want me to never contact you again just say and i never will and he said no i seriously don't want that. I have noticed through some apps that we use that shows who you are sending pictures and stuff to that he is talking to other girls, so i guess he may be playing the field as far as sex goes, so i wonder why he told me he didn't want to be a slut and decided against sex with me, but to be honest i think it is better this way than going through with it and maybe never hearing from him again, as this would hurt me more. I also have never had just a random hook up with someone, so i felt pretty uncomfortable at the thought of actually going through with it. I feel very ashamed right now. I offered myself sexually as i thought it may make him interested and we could end up together. Obviously, we all know that 9 times out of 10 this never happens, and it is just false hope. I don't feel he has led me on in terms of wanting a relationship with me, as he was pretty clear he didn't see one, but he went from saying he wanted me (assumed he meant sexually), to saying he wanted to just meet up and see how things went, to saying he feels smothered in a 72 hour period. I wish i would of suppressed my feelings towards him and just remained friends because i love talking to him and feel with everything that has happened now we can't really go back. I would be willing to, but he doesn't seem to be seems it has been 5 days. I don't know if this is a fantasy i have created in my own mind seems we have never met and so he may seem mysterious to me in some way, but i have sexual fantasies about him every day. I think about him all the time. I took the initiative after 5 days of silence and asked him if he still wanted to be friends, and if not then i guess we should stop talking. I was hoping he had maybe just felt i was a little intense but cared enough about the friendship to come back and say i want to be friends but just need space, or something to that extent, and he never responded. I really don't understand people and i am feeling very hurt right now. Why would someone be upfront about a lot of things, but not be upfront about not wanting to talk to you anymore, and tell you they don't want to stop talking? At the beginning when we used to just talk and i loved that and sharing our common interests. I always thought he was attractive, but i wasn't living in the US, and he had a girlfriend so i guess i didn't ever have the thought of us ever being together, and now i feel i have ruined it. We were still Facebook friends, and yesterday i finally deleted him off my friends. It was hard seeing pictures and Facebook status updates which made me think of him more and more and frustrate me more in what he is thinking and why he has acted the way he has. I really believed he cared about our friendship because of how we used to talk back then, but now i feel like we have 0 chance of ever meeting and having a friendship, and i don't know why he is acting so cold. I am having a hard time just moving on from this, and part of me really regrets unfriending him because the last bit of hope i had that we could still connect as friends, has gone. Also i would like to say that i do know someone who knows this guy, so it is not like he isn't who he says he is. I know a lot of people online can lie, but it isn''t like he is married with kids or anything. I just don't know what to do. I still really want us to connect again. I have never had such a connection with someone in terms of interests/personality/humor. What do you all think happened?

If having had the opportunity to make you his girlfriend he instead chose someone else, the meaning in his giant action is clear: you were something to help fill his spare time. In future, note these meaty actions. "he couldn’t see us ending up together, but he liked our friendship and was sexually attracted to me. " Translation: You're not what I'd consider girlfriend material but you clearly want *me* in that way (aim, fire, bullseye!), so, (cough!) what the hell...If based on hearing how I fancy you physically enough to want no-strings sex with you (as I secretly always have), you wish to chase and woo *me* - feel free, I'd definitely be up for that..... and now I'm going to show you how much *I* want the idea of a free-of-charge, convenient prostitute by giving you a taste of what life feels like to a woman in love with me when she dares say a self-respecting NO [cue me playing dead for a week "or so"]. Hence this statement, "He then went pretty silent for a week or so, and i said to him okay lets do a no strings attached thing", should actually read this: He then went silent for over a week ***SO*** I said yes rather than lose him and gain a gap in my life (whilst secretly I was thinking, once he'd had a sample of my free milk, he'd want to buy the actual cow rather than just continually receiving free milk. (Wrongggg.) That obviously proved NOT the case, at which point you accused him of having led you on. He may be a low down doity emotional con merchant but he can claim all he did was encourage you to lead YOURSELF on. That's how players do it. They use come-on signs so subtle or slightly out-of-focus you can read into them what it is you WANT them to mean; make YOU responsible for anything that happens between you; then either they drop you like a hot potato or fob you off with excuses (ones so tragic or sensitive or outright sacrosanct you'd have to risk being a RIGHT COW to question them over - meaning, you don't dare) for why they constantly treat you like a wh*re to their occasional punter rather than girlfriend or even just FRIEND with benefits, whilst all this time, behind your back, they're doing the exact same to god know how many other women. If you ever actually rear up to make a protest, they can just turn around and say, "I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden" and thereby escape looking like the sh*tfaces they are. Not all con-artists are after your money, you see. Some are after free sex-on-tap from a living blow-up doll. This boy has been playing you right from the start. He never had a girlfriend to begin with, the idea of one was just his tool for making you feel he was a really sweet, nice, victimise-able type. Yeah, right. He's a shark and always was, not poor wickle Nemo. To a player like him, however, you were just too much like hard work compared to the perk, meaning during that 72 hours (which is not that brief a time for a gobsmackingly emotionally manipulative con-artist) he'd found an easier target and - hey-ho! - managed to hook her. He's now acting cold/dead because as far as he's concerned you're now wholly superfluous to requirements (because he never did want friendship, it was his cover story and fancy-dress Nemo outfit). You may know someone who knows this guy but I'll bet you anything you like that either this someone is his Like or is unwittingly his victim in some way or simply doesn't know this rotten side to him whatsoever, merely the guy's false veneer. Why do you think his conning style is geared towards him always being left looking like he 'din't do NUFFINK WRONG, it was ALL HER'? Don't be ashamed, be proud. Proud that you're not manipulable little tiddler enough to have fallen for a shark's campaign. :-) Furthermore, you were NOT "intense" or "smothering". The problem was (and now we know why), HE wasn't intense or smothering ENOUGH. Right Qualities (yours), WRONG RECIPIENT (him). Once you meet a man whose feelings are reciprocal, he'll LOVE those qualities and not give them anywhere near negative labels. He'll say, 'One of the reasons why I love her so much is because she's so attentive and considerate and never drops the ball'. SO DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL! Accordingly, no, you can't go back (and nor should you want to). You particularly can't go back with what was only ever a false relationship with a man who was almost entirely self-fabricated. A conglomerate lie on legs. I ruined it, THREE CHEERS FOR HAVING RUINED IT!!!, is what you should (and soon will) be saying. :-) 'Someone up there' must really like you to have given you a really SAFE opportunity to wise up over the fact that some people on this planet aren't who or what they say they are - particularly when in a position where you can't verify their so-called facts one way or the other. You've lost nothing but a spare time filler whilst having gained a whole lot of savviness that accruing USUALLY costs lots of (psychological) cuts and bruises or even broken bones. 'Someone up there' recognises that you've reached a point where you have a genuinely heartfelt vacancy for the job entitled "My Soulmate", and gave you a crash-course in how, as interviewer, to discern behaviourally between which are the genuine, sincere, hard-work-ethic applicants with shared success on their mind and which are flaky, lazy, sleazy, disrespectful/disdainful, lying, dupers who in a short space of time would likely single-handedly end up sending your company BANKRUPT. You're still a 'going concern'. Suggest you now do that - go - in search or readiness to be sought by a diamond.

Thank you for your reply. Funny how people have such a different take on situations, and lots of what you said does completely fit and explain a lot. Some people thought he was basically a gentleman for not going through with it, and didn't to not hurt me, and decided to remove himself from the situation as my feelings appeared to be too strong. They actually thought based off the story that i basically pushed him out of even wanting to be my friend, and i was at fault more than him.

See the situation is you were romantically inclined to him and he wasn't. What you should have checked out was what does he want in his partner and see if it matches you. He felt it doesn't match. Which is why the periodic silence. Why he spoke in between was, he was confused and not getting a correct answer from inside him. The confusion translated to periodic silences and the by product was you felt he was leading you. Unless he comes out of his confusion this will continue. Why keep getting hurt? You did the right thing in deleting him from facebook. Now you need to delete him from your mind too. Okay.... No problem, not the end of the world. May be destiny has in store for you a better matched person. This one was only 60% matched....there is a 99% match somewhere out there!

It is so hard to, and i don't know why i am so hooked but i am. I really enjoyed our friendship when we just talked and there were no sexual advances. It makes me feel like i have ruined him even wanting that with me. I could accept he didn't want a relationship with me, but i am going to miss the friendship, and i don't know why he is being like this, not even bothering to respond and let me know what he feels, even if it is to never speak to me again

Well i guess you could say we have known each other since 2007, so for 8 years, but we spoke from like 2007-2008 (while i lived in my hometown), and then i moved and we spoke until like mid 2008, and lost touch until about 4 weeks ago. I don't really care if his feelings aren't returned, i just feel bummed out that he doesn't seem to even want to maintain the friendship with me, because that is how we started and i miss the conversations etc seems we have so many common interests, and i feel we told each other everything, and i don't have that with anyone else.

Do you think it is safe to say i won't hear from him again?

Hi, sorry for the delay in getting back to you (busy-busy-busy). My own experienced opinion, based on my above take is, I'm sorry to say - no, you won't. I wouldn't, therefore, waste any more of your time and emotional energy hankering after him and wondering whether he'll re-appear, because that will keep you in a state of less than availability, which gets transmitted via your vibes when out and about. Best draw a line underneath it all, chalk it up to experience and move on (and up), both where making a best friend *and* a boyfriend is concerned.

Thanks for getting back to me. I can't help but wonder if things would of been different if i never gave in to the sex talk, but i think it is clear at this point he never cared like i did about the friendship, at least not this time around. I do feel like i am totally blame myself for all of this. I told him i am sorry if i made him feel smothered and i cared about our friendship a lot, and it has been 2 weeks of silence from him now (about a week since i last reached out).

"i think it is clear at this point he never cared like i did about the friendship, at least not this time around" EXACTLY! And no, you're not to blame. You said yourself he flirted with you. What friend that wishes to protect and preserve the friendship dares do THAT if they know it can't lead to anywhere? Him? - he went even further! Why didn't he tell you THEN that he didn't see you that way instead of coming back with telling you he found you sexually attractive? That said quite clearly, 'I don't see you [or anyone?] as girlfriend material but if you'd like to be my on-call, free-of-charge prostitute that's fine by me'. Sorry, but those statements he made are all too crystal-clearly characteristic of the user/player. I rest my case. You were initially a time-filler come fantasy poster girl come future possible option. The minute you came ripe as an option, look at what that option consisted of in his mind! Yet the minute in walked in a better option (which you wouldn't have been able to know/see from where you sat), you suddenly became surplus to requirements and treated accordingly. Please read this and my initial response again (and again) until it clicks properly with the whole chain of events. If afterwards you feel there *were* still things you could have done better (although I don't see how given the above concrete limitations), then, fine - use that to hone and polish your tack next time with the next fella.

I would say its good you talked about sex, else you would have never understood the real picture and would have been tagging along in confusion. His friendship might come back to you after you move on with someone else and he feels its ok to be friends with you now. Then will depend on you if you want it then! Anyway one thing is for sure, he is not the person meant to be with you. You have to find someone who has an equal attraction to you.

Agree! Someone equally attracted *and*, like you, ready for a proper relationship with all it entails, not just one select slice of it.

I feel like you are a pretty crappy person though to pretend you care with no intentions of talking to someone ever again.

Agree again. Email makes that all too easy, though, doesn't it.