I need advice pls help Another instance
I, 22f, have been talking to this guy, 21m, who we’ll call Ben. I met Ben about two years ago in school but have been getting closer to him since October. We started more seriously talking towards the end of February up until now.
At the beginning, I was not as into Ben as I am now and it felt like he wanted me more in general. One night we were both drunk and ended up hooking up which is where my emotional connection started to grow stronger. We started sleeping over at each others places, texting constantly and always thinking of each other and plannings dates and such.
Throughout this, Ben has shown a random and inconsistent pattern of just ghosting me and not communicating anything for days to follow it up with an apology, some excuse, and how I don’t deserve this. At first, I communicated to him how this is genuinely one of my biggest triggers and nothing makes me more anxious than not knowing where we stand, especially after everything was seemingly okay between us. One of the first times this happened I had asked Ben one morning after staying the night if he wanted to be exclusive to which he said yes but I felt in my gut something was off. He didn’t text or talk to me for the following 3 days then come over drunk saying how he was just unsure of where our futures are leading us rn (both just graduated college) and he’s the type of person to self isolate to think about things like this. And that after this time of thinking it through he is sure he wants to be exclusive w each other.
This happened maybe 2-3 more times to which I told him how it makes me feel again. Last week Ben went to the beach for a week and once he got back we spent the next 4 days together. I had made him a gift and he got me $130 Lego set of one of our favorite animals and we ended up saying I love you one morning. When I left we hugged for like 5 min & planned to hang soon & he texted me his run right after I left and how he loves me. Now, three days later, he hasn’t texted me anything after multiple times of me asking if he’s okay or wants to talk but I have his location and he was at the pool and going to parties and such.
Other context about Ben is he is very popular and generally just hangs around a lot of girls and my true gut feeling recently is that he has a true crush on this other girl well call sarah. About a month ago our senior class had bargolf and Ben got me wristbands/I had expected to go with him + his friends. But come to the day he just stops responding again, comes to my house to drop off the bands while I’m crying just from the entire situation, and leaves. My other friend who I met up with later said she saw him with this girl and a group of friends and I saw him later that night but he never acknowledged me and it felt like we were trying to avoid each other. This was before we started talking seriously and consistently but it is the repetitive behavior.
I feel like the stakes for this situationship or whatever tf it is have come to be way higher for me than him and I don’t want to lose him but I also don’t want to keep putting these waves of stress on my nervous system. One of my bsfs came in from 6hrs away and we had met up with him in line for a bar (their first time meeting) and they talked for maybe 30sec before he left to go talk with other friends. His response was just how it was never his true intention and he was just trying to say goodbye to everyone one last time despite my friend rlly wanting to meet him. Her opinion is that he might be love bombing me and is giving player but I don’t know what to do and I am so sad and confused pls help
Another instance that came to mind is right after spring break he went to Mexico with a group of girls and guys and the first night we saw each other after break he explains their entire trip and how everyone was hooking up and this girl was being super touchy and hitting on him and he ended up having to sleep in the girls room bc the guy he was w was hooking up in their room. Mind you today I found in old chat gbg chats him asking how to carry on their conversation (it was before we ever started talking) but still using very similar language to how he talks to me sometimes. I just to want to look stupid and feel look a fool plz give ur true outside advice.