u/Impossible-Lab-5518

We were hooking up the summer of last year, and he ghosted me in october and we haven't talked since. one month later i found out he has a girl. I don't think they were together when we were hooking up but i don't know that for certain.

I have noticed him blocking/unblocking after viewing my stories a few times in the past few months, i only ever catch him in my views by chance but he ends up blocking me for a day after every single time i post. i know this may seem like a small thing but it’s the principle of it. his games of control / secrecy are mainly pissing me off lmao. using my account like a secret pastime whenever he’s curious / bored. he needs to focus on her and stop using me to feed his ego.

I was wondering if anyone has been in a similar situation and has advice / insight for me on this.

It reflects pretty poorly on his maturity and boundaries. i shouldn’t have to manage this grown man’s behaviour by blocking him (tbh i just don't want to give him any reaction). he knows it’s wrong that’s why he hides it.

We were hooking up the summer of last year, and he ghosted me in october and we haven’t talked since. one month later i found out he has a girl. I don’t think they were together when we were hooking up but i don’t know that for certain.

I have noticed him blocking/unblocking after viewing my stories a few times in the past few months, i only caught it by chance istg. I just think it’s strange that he’s doing this.

I was wondering if anyone has been in a similar situation and can give me some advice. Is this sneaky behaviour normal? It reflects pretty poorly on his maturity and boundaries. I’m not interested in unnecessarily involving myself in their relationship and i also don’t think i should have to manage this guy’s behaviour by blocking him (tbh i just don’t want to give him any reaction).

sorry for this criminally long story but the reason why i‘m posting this is bc i‘d like to know if this is normal. this is my first ever breakup, it honestly emotionally drained me so much which is why i hope someone can look at this from an outside perspective. am i overreacting when i say this is not healthy behavior? i‘d love to hear any thought you have on this, and i can answer any questions you have too.

here is some context: last year (feb-apr), i was in montreal where i met a guy. we met in february and made it official in march, and when i left montreal, he told me he wanted to try long-distance. even though we weren‘t together for a long time at that point, we had a pretty deep, meaningful connection and neither of us expected that. we did long-distance, and in august he broke up with me bc the long-distance was feeling like a job to him, that his work + the relationship is exhausting him and that he can‘t put in the effort i needed from him. he constantly reassured me that it had nothing to do with me, i deserve better and that i will always hold a special place in his heart etc.

after the breakup for the first two weeks, he would text me every day (pretty much exactly how we would when we were together), calling me pet names, telling me he loved me (which confused me but at the time i didn‘t know these weren‘t healthy boundaries). he confided in me that he is talking to new girls on insta, telling me he‘s having a hard time talking to them bc he still thinks about us (like dude no one is forcing you but wtv). he even gave me their insta bc he wanted to be honest with me (again, no boundaries here but this was my first breakup so i didn‘t know any better). after around two weeks of this, he sends me this long-ass goodbye paragraph where he says he has been going on a few dates with this new girl and that it is time for him to move on from me („it‘s time for me to flip the page on this one“). again, he says i mean a lot to him and he will never forget what we had blah blah. this broke my heart at the time because i felt like i was being replaced/discarded for a “better“ girl, and that he would rather put in effort for a different girl than for me. i removed him on all my social media and removed him from our shared notes and shared playlists as a way to gain back control over the situation and bc i felt like it was the right thing to do.

this is the important part: pretty much since we broke up, he has been dating the same girl. they apparently made it official in december after dating since september. since our breakup, he has periodically (every few weeks to few months) reached out to me for different reasons. most of the time, he would ask how i‘m doing, or ask about how things were going in my life (like if i had moved apartments already). on holidays like christmas he would text me and also thanked me for the good times we had. i always gave him minimal answers and never initiated new questions. any type of contact we had through texting was initiated by him which naively kept me hopeful for a long time.

also, he would make public (?!) spotify playlists that were clearly directed towards me. the titles either had names we called each other, phrases we used when we were together, or were related to meaningful memories we shared. keep in mind they are public for everyone (including his new girl) to see. (it‘s one thing to privately make playlists about your ex to process it but to make them public while your gf is clueless to what they mean?? i think that‘s disrespectful to her). over time he would either change the title of the playlist to a different reference to me or add songs that we used to listen to together. i never reacted to this externally and just pretended i never saw it. it has been over six months since the breakup (three months since he made it official with his new girl) and he still has public playlists about me. one detail: i had a playlist with a subtitle that said „fleeing my country as soon as exams are over“ meaning i was going to montreal during my break. shortly after, he made the title of one of his playlists about me to „show a sign when u flee“. he also recently asked if i was going to be in montreal soon to which i answered yes (nothing else was said). also, he has recently viewed some of my insta stories (even though i removed him) and every time he did, would block me after (bc of guilt? to stop the urge? to hide it from his gf?). i know these are just small things but i‘m trying to point to the bigger picture: he is being emotionally dishonest. am i overreacting for thinking this is unfair for his new girlfriend?

at this point this is what i think: he is trying balance his conflicting needs (= staying emotionally attached to us while enjoying something new) which is emotionally immature to do. it makes it harder for me to move on bc it feels like he is still emotionally invested in us. and it is not fair for the new girl since he publicly is showing lingering feelings towards me.