I had not been in touch with him in all this time as we live in different countries and only reconnected just before I planned to visit his country. At the end of my trip, we planned four days together. I think he Future Faked me by writing how he’d thought of me and our connection over these years, on how he felt about me and that we would become ‘we’ on this visit. The visit really built up in my mind and then of course, when we met it was as though he wished he wasn’t there.
He talked a lot about himself and was cool to me. Aside from a hug and one moment of holding my hand, he never touched me. It was bizarre. I asked him about it and he got very angry and said, “What’s the urgency?”. Later when I asked why he agreed to meet me, he told me that he never asks why. I then went so far as to read one of his emails back to him and he said, “Well, I would be happy to receive an email like that!”. Sure, if the person who wrote it followed through. He also seemed to get very angry that I remembered the life-changing advice he gave me 20 years ago. It was so troubling. I have absolutely no idea what happened. When I left his country a week ago I said, “Have a nice life. Goodbye!” and that was the end of it. I haven’t heard from him and am pretty certain I won’t. I feel confused, angry, and hurt, like I was sucker-punched. What the hell happened?
********************
On a recent episode of the HBO/Sky Atlantic series, ‘Insecure’, when Molly introduces her hot, new guy who she’s only been on one date with to her friends at an engagement party, and they refer to him as her ‘boyfriend’, he goes along with it, causing Molly to feel rather excited. Alone at the bar afterwards, Chris essentially says that he could see her desperation so he was happy to fill that role for her but that it essentially should be oh-so-obvious to her that they’re not a couple.
Your pen not-so-much-of-a-pal, Alison, is quick with words, light on action.
He’s the type of person who’d give someone The Best Date Ever TM because he wants to feel good about not wanting to take it further. When the date feels confused about why they haven’t heard back, especially in light of what they thought was the “amazing chemistry”, he rationalises that at least he made sure he gave them a good time and goes on his merry way.
I think you hold him in too high an esteem. I’m not saying that you have to think of him an assclown, it’s just that a lot can change in twenty months never mind twenty years.
There you are thinking of him as your very own Buddha (or Yoda) and he doesn’t either recall what he said to you or rate its importance. Now at the end of the day, if advice he gave was life-changing, that won’t be changed by this recent fracas, but he’s either not the man you thought he was or he’s not the man he used to be. It’s also time to recognise that you’re not that woman anymore either.
Did you really both have that great a connection or was there an element of returning to your respective images of each other as a bit of boost that crossed into an element of fantasy?
Why do people reconnect with those they haven’t seen for a long time? There’s often this underlying desire to connect with their younger self, to see what could have been.
Why do you think so many people had affairs with old school friends they met on the now defunct Friends Reunited or why Facebook is cited in so many divorces? People love this idea of meeting up with somebody who reminds them of a different time, where maybe they were footloose and fancy free without the baggage they imagine they have right now. They also like meeting up with people who used to (and possibly still do) hold them in high regard, plus there’s this hope that maybe they’re the same as we remember them.
Reconnecting with old flames and long-lost friends turns us into time travellers.
You say that you “vaguely remember” that he couldn’t perform? What, you mean like the way he vaguely remembers that advice he gave you that made him so angry? Odds are, neither of you have forgotten about that performance no matter how loving and caring he was afterwards.
Now the truth is, we don’t know what’s been going on in his life during this twenty years but you might have represented an opportunity to right the wrongs of the past. He set himself up for a fall by creating expectations that it’s very possible he couldn’t live up to (or that he feared he couldn’t). If someone’s pitched you a Mills and Boon number where two become one and you’re going to get his ‘member’ but in reality they’ve got some confidence issues that are literally taking the wind out of their sails, it’s very possible that they will sabotage rather than run the risk of embarrassment and rejection.
What if you had fallen into each other’s arms and he’d swept you up to bed or ‘taken you’ right there and then, only for it to be a repeat of twenty years ago? Risky business.
You’ve grown and changed a lot in that twenty-year interval and the fact that his fantasy bubble burst isn’t a negative about you. You’re not obliged to be the woman from back then, no more than he’s obliged to be that guy.
Maybe talking about himself a lot is who he is and you just didn’t notice it first time round, or maybe he talked a lot about himself and was aloof because now that things weren’t a fantasy, he wanted to manage down your expectations. Maybe, even though you weren’t unkind to him at the time, he took something about the old experience as a rejection and has now ‘evened things up’ by doing the same to you.
I understand your hurt, anger and confusion, because it feels like you’ve been built up and then discarded.
It wasn’t necessary for him to create those expectations. Sure, you can also manage your own expectations but what people who pull what he did (and then almost make out like you’re crazy/needy/dramatic for querying it) need to keep in mind is that people would stop expecting if they stopped creating expectations.
The truth is though that this was a bit of a fantasy for you too.
He did Future Fake but there has also been an element of Future Faking yourself, granted with the help of his emails. You hoped on some level that you were two star-crossed lovers who’d had a tender night all those years ago and that you were sent on your way with some life-changing advice that you held close to your heart. To you, you were being reunited, ready for the fairy tale happy ending. Throw in that you had him on a pedestal anyway, possibly because your life wasn’t as good as it is now, and you didn’t stay grounded and ask yourself the right questions or manage your expectations. You didn’t grow up your image of him and arranging to spend four solid days with him had the potential to set you up for pain.
Some of your feelings are about this recent run-in but a lot of them will be about the dismantling of the 20-year fantasy. What you might need to consider is that yeah, he gave you some great advice but that it’s you who has done the graft. Thank him for being a part of your journey, thank yourself for this opportunity to update your perspective, and let go of your aspirations for him and you. He represents a distant past not your future.
Have you been in this type of situation? What would you advise Alison?
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The narcissist ex I always mention was a re-run from 10 years earlier. Turns out amnesia is just a part of the emotional damage they leave in their tsunami-like wake. Then they blame it all on you.
Here’s my best advice:
D O N ‘ T D O I T ! J U S T D O N ‘ T .
I waited 15 years for mine; the man I “wished I’d got to first,” who seemed to be the decent, marriage-and-children type (indeed, the woman who would become his wife was pregnant), and the polar opposite of my then boyfriend. Years passed and ‘fate’ caused us to meet by chance; his wife had left him! I was exactly the post-split ‘Fallback Girl’ he was looking for. After all, I’d loved him for 15 years!
What followed was 3 years (on and off, I hasten to add), of me living the fantasy that he was meant to be mine, and that he was a decent, honest and faithful man, whose horrible wife had inexplicably cheated on him and therefore couldn’t express his feelings for me. Even my friends kept telling me: “he keeps chasing you, he must love you!”
After 3 years, he ditched me like a hot brick – cliché alert – for someone at running club. Who he claimed to have just met, but we’ve all heard that one before, eh?!
Alison,
Don’t waste another moment of your time on this guy. His words, actions, inactions, etc have nothing to do with you. He’s responsible for All of his pathetic behavior.
I don’t think this guy even qualifies for “Future Faker”. He gets ONE big fat F. He is a FLAKE.
He liked pretending and fantasy but reality scares him $hitless. He is petrified about actually having a sexual encounter, and he was so afraid that he could not even be a good host. Picking a fight, making you feel your companionship was totally unwanted.
I have (or had) a habit of trying to make “more” out of fledgling relationships, even platonic relationships. I travelled with a gay man to Paris, his idea….it was odd how that trip came about…he and I had never hung out before but had been pleasant coworkers….anyway….we had a great time, and when we got back I decided to try encouraging a hang-out relationship. I remember driving 40 minutes into town to meet him at a pastry shop that was two blocks from his home – my suggestion – and he said OK. Well that particular night, the shop had closed early. I called him from my car to tell him the shop was closed…fully expecting that he’d suggest I come by for a short visit….remember…he lived 2 blocks away. Two SHORT blocks away. But nope….he heard the shop was closed and well, that was the end of our chance for a visit. Not even a ‘maybe some other time’. He was curt and his tone was more of a ‘too bad for you’. I remember feeling stung and discarded, like how *foolish* was I to think he wanted to build a friendship. Rejection hurts even if there are no romantic fantasies attached.
His name was Guy. I never spoke to Guy again. And not because I was freezing him out, I was disheartened, not angry. I just never called him again and he never called me.
The guy I knew from 20 years ago emailed long letters, thinking it was making or creating a friendship. But it was not. All he kept talking about was his wife’s day. I didn’t give a rat’s about is wife’s day at work, but he had to go on and on with these boring emails about his wife and her day at work, and her company just got sold will she lose her benefits, see? I know too much about her. I tried to rekindle a friendship, and he was interested in making some kind of competition with his boring wife (I never met her, but her social media showed she NEVER smiled, although at one time she had been quite pretty). She looked tired, haggard and now to be a poster girl for depression if you asked me. I finally gave up and ended it with an email stating succinctly, “This is me giving up.” That was the last I heard from him.
The above described situation left we guessing a bit. Alison writes: “I think he Future Faked me by writing how he’d thought of me and our connection over these years, on how he felt about me and that we would become ‘we’ on this visit. The visit really built up in my mind…”
I stumbled over a few things here:
1. He future faked by writing “how he felt about her.” Which was how? This is a bit vague. Unless he wrote he’s in love with her, wants to be in a relationship, and they will ride into the sunset together in t -5 seconds, I don’t see this as future faking. There are people in our lives with whom we cherish a connection after 20 years. I don’t think there is anything wrong with saying that while not immediately implying a future together.
2. Also the statement “we would become ‘we'” could mean any number of things, including a platonic re-enactment of the connection they shared.
3. But, most importantly, “the visit built up in my mind.” Which I think is exactly the issue here. We can take anything anyone says, build our narrative around it, have expectations beyond belief, and then be disappointed. I think it’s unfair to cry foul because our imagination ran amok.
From the little information that is provided, it sounds more like he opened up about the “possibility” of reconnecting romantically from his side and looking forward to “finding out. What else can you expect after 20 years?
What is also quite important to remember in a situation like this is that reconnecting and both promising, as well as expecting a relationship, after having not seen one another for 20 years is inherently doomed to fail – there is no other way than to enter into it based on a whole host of projections. As much as I’m unsure if this guy actually future faked (again, his actual words in the preceding emails are vague + what is provided doesn’t sound like a promise to me,) I think either way expectations were too high, which, even if he had a future in mind, could kill any budding romance.
It’s just my read on the story, but I wouldn’t be so quick paint the guy a manipulative future faker…
My opinion of the line “we would become *we*” is: that is not a platonic thing to say. I can’t think of any category of friend I would say that to. Even if you interpret it like the Casablanca line “Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” – it does mean it is the beginning of something *more*. Whether that “more” is platonic friendship or romantic, it does imply some continuity of connection.
So even if Allison thought “romance” and he thought “friend”, then as a friend he should have been a friend….suggest friendly things to do rather than pick apart her impression of things…be straightforward by saying “Whoa….I’m not looking for romance but I’d like a friend.” If he were gracious, he could throw in a “I’m sorry for giving the wrong impression.”
But being gracious is a dying art. Today it seems that people are eager to embarrass the other party.
Elgie R., I do agree, “We would become we” definitely has a romantic ring to it. It’s a stretch to interpret it as something platonic, but also a stretch to interpret it as a promise of a great future together. From the little information provided (as to exact wording, that is,) it sounds like he was open to exploring, but that’s a far cry from future faking.
I also agree that if he only had friendship on his mind, he should have apologized for giving the wrong impression, but it seems that wasn’t entirely the case either. He probably could have seen it go either way.
I’ve been in this situation, but the other way around. I met up with someone I had a great connection with many years prior. We exchanged emails in which we told each other how much we meant to one another, how much we still cherished the connection we had, and there was definitely something “in the air.” I traveled to see him, looking forward to exploring and seeing what happened – it had been years after all!
When we met, we had a great time, but I quickly realized he had much higher hopes for the situation than I did. It put me off, quite frankly, as after so many years of not seeing each other, we didn’t actually “know” each other anymore. I would have needed more time just being together and enjoying each others’ company, getting to know each other again – vetting him, so to speak – before jumping into something romantic. The fact that he was so blindly assuming all this meant I was in love with him and we’d soon be a couple seriously raised a red flag – the definition of future faking is going all-in, or saying one wants to, without knowing all the facts!
Long story short, I retreated somewhat, made sure not to have any physical contact, and kept my actions proportionate to how well I knew him (meaning, not well by that time, so why act more familiar.) I had not made any promises, so I felt comfortable doing so. He called me out, called me a tease and a manipulator, yes, even read back a message I had sent him in which I told him how much he meant to me after the great connection we had years ago. His anger floored me, to say the least. It was disproportionate and quite irrational in my eyes, and raised another huge red flag.
To this day, I don’t believe I led him on or future faked. Come to think of it, as little as we knew each other at the time and as many projections as we had about one another, I think he was in the process of future faking me by being so adamant we become a couple asap…
See, Hojay, I have trouble understanding the retreat, without conversation. Without saying “Whoa, this is too fast!” Or “I’m feeling a little panicked by this, I am pretty sure we want different things.”
And then really talking about it to make sure everyone understands what page the other person is on. Even when that means you come to the conclusion that you are on different pages, and maybe should decide to stop pursuing anything. With a good chance that someone’s feelings may be unrequited, but at least no one will be left feeling confused or ‘dumped’.
Mature conversations and friendly endings.
My problem has been that I am the one willing to have the mature conversation, but the other party wants things to be the way “they” envision, so I am charged with“thinking too much” or not being willing to “give things a chance”. No one wants to hear NO to their vision of things. I am willing to hear “NO” to my vision of things when it comes to mutual relationships. I can think of three times in my life where I was interested in a man and felt some hesitation from him, and I point blank asked about his level of attraction toward me, and I was disappointed to learn I was always to be in the friend zone. But I still think of those men fondly – in one case a platonic friendship happily developed and, in another, we remain career colleagues, and in the third, well, he has the Adonis complex and always seems uncomfortable if I try to make conversation so…I don’t. No hanky-panky or borderline flirtations with any of them. They are closed chapters in my book of romances.
I just saw some movie, can’t remember what it was but I liked this line – “Instead of being sorry that it ended, be happy that it happened.”
Again, I agree with you. There shouldn’t be a retreat without a conversation. That’s exactly what I did as soon as I became aware – or at least had indisputable gut proof – that he was very heavily invested in making this happen asap. Of course it took a minute for me to speak up because I couldn’t be sure 100% that’s what was happening and I didn’t want to “reject” him for something he wasn’t even feeling. So yes, I didn’t speak up the minute I had an inkling. But I did when I was sure.
I wasn’t aware How Much Hope TM he had invested until I “retreated,” and made clear by word and action that I wasn’t going to jump the gun, regardless of what emails we had exchanged. It was then that he became confrontational and accused me of what the man above is being accused of, future faking. Any chance of our romance blooming was dead that very minute.
It seems that’s exactly what happened in Alison’s case, and I still think that, unless he wrote to her he wants to be in a relationship with her and her visit meant sealing the deal, but then it turns out he had no such intention, what that man did was explore where they were headed, not more, not less, and most definitely not future faking.
All that aside, I wonder: As women we are often told that even agreeing to something previously does not mean we can’t change our minds. We can, for example, agree to meet someone with the clear implication of hooking up, then spur of the moment decide we don’t want to. If we notice something about a man we don’t like, we’re told to bail quickly (depending on the “level of offense,” with our without a conversation.) Men, on the other hand, are not allowed to take it slowly, feel things out, or perhaps even change their minds, without being labeled future fakers, EU, or worse.
It’s a double standard I see often in the comment section of Nat’s genius posts, and I find it not only misguided, but also a hindrance to learning healthy boundaries.
Yes, I understand. I, too, wonder how we are supposed to “date”…I mean, what are the rules of engagement…how do we do a proper “discovery” without someone feeling duped or misled.
I have posed that question a few times here, but no answer has appeared for how to date long enough to know you need to end things, without the *end-ee* feeling blindsided by what they see as a “sudden” lack of interest. You date for 3 months, it is ho-hum for you, but he thinks things are “building”…you have The Conversation…he gets mad. If you had sex during the ho-hum period, he REALLY gets mad and feels doubly rejected. Or reverse the situ – you see 3 months of dating as the prelude to deep involvement, but he was actually bored by everything, he wants to end things, and now YOU feel duped, and if you had sex, you also feel “used”. You feel like he should have *known” after 1 week or 1 month or 2 months that he did not want anything deeper, and he should have said something. But what if it took 3 months to figure that out?
For many of us, one good date is a prelude to that person being “The One”. I actually think you can’t make a decision until you have one BAD date with The One. What is that person like when things aren’t going splendidly – when the real personality comes out…when I can’t smooth things over and ignore the elephant in the room. How good are we at handling interpersonal conflict? Do I attack and demean? Does he? Do we come out the other side liking each other more?
I think emotional intelligence is on the decline. Young folks are not learning how to handle disappointment at early ages. Do kids play in schoolyards anymore? Do they pass notes or is everything on some social platform…so that a break-up is now a form of public ridicule? Oh, I remember so many crushes and heartbreaks in elementary and junior high. The pretty girl getting the handsome guy you mooned over. But these were mostly private heartbreaks. My first adult heartbreak happened when I was 22…I can’t imagine how long it would have taken to get over him if I followed him on FaceBook!
Maturity is accepting that heartbreaks happen..they are a part of life.
*Hope other commenters and readers find this convo valuable, it’s getting long. Apologies 🙂 *
Ugh, very well put and I completely agree. I’ve thought about this a lot, too. How are you supposed to date and feel things out without the other person feeling duped when things don’t pan out, or the other way around.
I don’t think there is a time limit to when one can safely call it quits. It can happen after 1 week and the other person feels cheated, or it could happen after 2 years. Fact is, it does take YEARS to really get to know someone and vet them as long-term material. So really, there is no safety zone for opting out. It will ALWAYS hurt, no matter what. The risk of being left blindsided is just par for the course of dating and relationships. At the end of the day, it’s complete and utter chaos.
I, personally, take things very slow nowadays. I’m weary of love bombing behavior and people who fast track. It doesn’t mean I don’t have strong feelings for someone, but I’m so aware by now that dating is a process with many unforeseen twists and turns, I have both feet firmly planted in the ground. That means I don’t get attached too quickly (or ever, really 100 % by now) in case someone changes their mind. It’s also insurance that when I want out, I don’t stay for mere attachment. When they do change their mind, I don’t blame them (unless see below,) and I retain the right to change my mind, knowing they might be hurt, but having to live with it (and hoping they have good boundaries…)
I think it takes very strong and healthy self-worth and a good understanding of boundaries to come out of a situation where someone “changed their mind” about you and NOT label them EU or a future faker. The fact of the matter is, we are who we are and some people just may find out they can’t envision a future with us. It doesn’t mean they are sick. It hurts, but labeling the other for not giving us what we want just distracts from the real issue – our bruised ego.
I think if you’ve been in a situation where someone purposefully and maliciously betrayed and mislead you for their own personal gain, the line between normal human behavior (changing ones mind, taking it slow, not being 100 % sure about things 100 % of the time) versus truly sick and abhorrent behavior becomes very clear. I’ve become hesitant labeling everyone who doesn’t want me or missteps here and there a future faker, EU, or otherwise sick. The reality of interacting with those kinds of people is quite different.
And I agree with you that emotional intelligence is on the decline. So is decency, respect, and just simply doing the right thing. I haven’t been around long enough to know if it’s ever been different, but it seems we now live in a world of instant gratification and sanctioned narcissism through which relationships have become an area of mind-bending emotional disaster with far-reaching personal consequences.
I like Nat’s writings on the concept of “sunk costs” and not trying to recoup them or assign blame in any relationship or emotional involvement. Think it takes repeated effort to learn to reign your ego in. You have to keep at it , it never really becomes second nature unless you’re like the Dalai Lama, maybe even he struggles.
Natalie asked, “Have you been in this type of situation?”
Well, taking the romantic angle out of things, I’m wondering, has anyone ever used LinkedIn when you’ve been looking for a job? Does anyone “network” for business/professional reasons? What kind of situations did you get in when you were looking for a new job and/or professional contacts?
The reason I wonder is, I wonder about how you get similar results with a person to Alison even though the situation or circumstances may be a little different. Same “type” of situation but not necessarily a romantic setup.
A lot of the advice out there says to reach out to people you haven’t heard from in a while. You know, “drop them a line,” “just say a quick hello,” “check up on them” and “see what happens from there” or whatever. That is essential what Alison did.
Okay. I did that full on over the course of about 1 year, with no kidding, about several hundred people, male, female — various ages, backgrounds etc. That’s a good sampling of humanity, right?
Well — I can tell you that doing so brought me into contact with some frankly, very weird stuff, none of it good, some even weirder than Alison’s story.
I’d like to hear from others before sharing a lot of details b/c really, very strange behavior I was exposed to. Based on my experience I would like to off that it’s a very nice thing to want to be outgoing and get the ball rolling on being in touch with someone from long ago. But. . .you have to be careful, even maybe more careful than with an entirely new stranger. Why? Because it *feels like* you know the person better than you actually do. Could be trouble, far more trouble than with a complete stranger b/c it feel like there is more invested than there should be. It’s kind of like future-faking but with *past-faking* thrown in,too — think rose colored glasses on steroids.
So then? Go slow. Possibly even slower than with a new person — avoid the excitement of “rekindling” at all costs — not a friendship, not a romance, nothing! Maybe don’t meet in person based on an e-mail, have a phone call first. Then, maybe a quick coffee or drink, probably not a meal. Don’t plan a 4-day extravaganza with someone from so long ago! The basis for something like that is ice thin? And guess what? Yep, thin ice breaks and you drown.
I ended up wondering why *I* had to be the person to “reach out to catch up” all the time, with so MANY people, just b/c I was kinda looking for a job.
I ended up over time developing a kind of “rule” that if I hadn’t heard from a person in the past 6 months that in fact, they would be like a stranger, starting almost from zero. If we both don’t make the effort to have regular catch ups or outings, then I let things drop until *I* hear from *them.*
This sort of “strategy” has worked for me both with “old flame” situations as well as friends and other contacts/acquaintances, even family I haven’t heard from in a while. Everybody like that, who hasn’t been a constant presence in my life gets the side eye and a once over. “Picking up where we left off” doesn’t work for me. At all. But it literally took sorting through hundreds of people to figure this out for myself! That’s a bit extreme, I think, but there you go.
Thoughts?
God you could 100% be referring to me in this blog..the similarities to my miserable existence is uncanny
It sounds like she tried to get clarity with him because she was confused by his behavior. Reading his email back to him and he got angry? Weird. Why wouldn’t he try to understand her feelings and have empathy and compassion? All he talked about was himself? So rude.
I do really like what Nat had to say here. “Throw in that you had him on a pedestal anyway, possibly because your life wasn’t as good as it is now, and you didn’t stay grounded and ask yourself the right questions or manage your expectations.”
I really get, that no matter what, we are responsible for our side of the street. To stay grounded, ask yourself the right questions, and manage your own expectations.
I totally see how she fell for the future faking. I really get it and have fallen for that too many times myself. But if there is a way out of this, a lesson, and hope for the future, it has to be that we cannot lie to ourselves and future fake our own selves into a fairy-tale romance. Life just doesn’t work that way. We know this, and yet we think that we will be the exception. That we will be swept off our feet and there will be some really cool movie soundtrack playing in the background. Yes, we must manage our own expectations, we must keep our center and operate from there.
To me, this is the goal. Progress not perfection.
AND, how she was treated was yucky and I know it hurts. He did you a favor by being a jerk. You deserve better. We all do.
Keep your chin up lovely, better things are coming.
This guy was clearly implying something romantic. Of course there would be no guarantees as to what would happen once they met up, but it’s reasonable for Alison to expect that he would at least be friendly.
Alison liked what she knew of him and was interested – there’s no harm in that. We all make assessments as to whether we think we may be interested in someone. It just means that we have to adjust and reassess if necessary based on what materializes, which is what she’s now done.
Alison, this guy has his own issues and his behaviour wasn’t about you. It’s a blessing in disguise that he showed you who he is right off the bat, rather than pulling a stunt like this further down the line.
I think there are some red flags in the LWs question; first, going to a different country and deciding to look up a flame from 20 years ago. Check. Sometimes its better to leave the past in the past. Second, deciding to spend four days together which is a lot of time for someone you haven’t seen for 20 years. A coffee, sure. Four days? – thats sending a message, that you would be up for some intimacy at the least. I assume some conversations were had about whether both are single etc? If not, then the four days is even stranger. Does he not have a wife, girlfriend, business, dog, running club?
Third, playing along with the vaguely worded relationship email – it wasn’t even flirty from what I can tell, at least flirty promises a good time – this was a sort of past faking as someone said above, trying to change the meaning of what happened before and bring it into today. The LW didn’t brush off this email – I wonder if it was the email that actually prompted the desire for spending four days. And perhaps for the friend that email started a chain of events that went out of his control.
Fourth, going along with a relationship vibe email from someone that you only knew 20 years ago AND lives in another country = unavailability alert.
Fifth, as Nat said, he remembers those performance issues 100%. And he knows that you know them too. I don’t know how people psychologically deal with performance issues but I’m assuming that it sometimes makes people unavailable and / or future fakers and ACs – they play the game only so long but they are setting it up to be inauthentic so you can ‘fail’ and then their ‘failure’ can be blamed on you. If you’re nice about it, you still fail because they know that the encounter wasn’t really equal – you gave more emotionally by ‘managing’ their performance and you know something ‘bad’ about them – power imbalance. If you’re not nice about it – thats power imbalance too. Either way unless the person has really worked on themselves, those performance issues will still be in the background of their thinking = you really don’t know this person at all to assume that a healthy relationship is on the cards.
I have a similar story: after 30 years (!) an old flame of mine called me out of the blue announcing he would be visiting my town. Out of curiosity, I agreed to meet him for coffee, which I did. Most of the time he was here, I tried to avoid him but he was so insistant that I agreed to meet him a second time, and then it happened: I fell for him again. After he returned to his country, I sent him a text message saying how much I enjoyed the time we spent together. And that’s how it started: he invited me to visit him (which I did), he texted me several times a day, even when I’ve been in Asia for 6 weeks, we were in contact several times a day, he calling me and sending me love message after love message. As soon as I was home again, I sensed he was pulling back and when I directly asked him when we would meet as he suggested several times, all I got was a non-commital response. That’s when I pulled the plug, but during the ensuing months I was a wreck and I contacted him again. I visited his hometown in May this year and met him. He was overwhelmed by feelings, such that even my friends who were with me, couldn’t but not notice. However, as soon as I was home, he went silent and the only explanation I got was: “I couldn’t bear being so close to you and not being able to see you…and when this happens I shut down”. Well, this went on and off during summer and now it’s 2 months since I haven’t heard from him (again!). No explanation, not one word. This time around, I do not contact him either and I’m determined to let go, after two years of unfulfilled promises and rejections.