Auntie SparkNotes: Why Did He Cut Me Off with No Explanation?

Hey Auntie!!

I have an issue with this boy (surprise, surprise!) We used to hook up, developed feelings for each other, dated, then broke up (because distance became an issue). We decided to stay friends, which then turned into friends with benefits, which was probably not the best idea. Anyway, we were recently texting about normal stuff, and all of a sudden he sent me a message saying that we should stop talking, and basically, “goodbye.” I still had feelings for him, even though I may have let him believe otherwise. He had before told me that he was over me.

Why did he cut things off with no explanation? My first thought is that his feelings resurfaced, but I’m completely confused. I feel so sad. I have strong feelings for him and would love to get back together, but he blocked me on everything so I can’t contact him and ask for an explanation. I just want to know why he felt the way he did, and if I did anything wrong.

Well, that one’s easy: You didn’t.

Or at least, I’m 99% sure that you didn’t—unless you neglected to mention the part where the “normal stuff” you were talking about right before the abrupt goodbye was actually you informing the guy that you’d just killed and eaten his pet guinea pig.

In which case his behavior makes a lot of sense, and you’re a monster who should be in jail.

But otherwise, your best explanation for his behavior probably goes something like this: A person can spend a long time working up the nerve to rip off a band-aid, but the band-aid doesn’t know anything about it until the actual moment of ripping. So where this seemed like an abrupt cutoff to you, for him, it was probably the culmination of a lot of silent stewing on his part — which you were of course unaware of, between the fact that your relationship was long distance and the fact that you don’t live inside the guy’s head.

And sadly, darling, that’s also probably the best explanation you’re likely to get. “I don’t think we should be in touch anymore” is a painful sentence, but it’s a complete one. And while being cut off like this is awful, he did say goodbye—which, along with his blocking you, tells you a lot about the why. He did this because he doesn’t want to talk to you. He doesn’t want to hear from you. He doesn’t want to see your picture in his Facebook feed or your number on his caller ID. He may not want to expressly say it out loud, but his reasons are clear enough: These are the actions of a person who hurts every time he thinks about you.

Unfortunately, that also makes him very much not a person whose life you should be forcing yourself into just for the sake of your own satisfaction. So if it’s closure you’re looking for, this is where you start the process of giving it to yourself, and leaving him out of it.

… That is, unless you really, truly mean it about wishing you could get back together with him.

Because as much as Auntie SparkNotes believes in respecting people’s boundaries, I also believe in love, of course. And while getting in touch with him to demand an explanation would be in bad taste, getting in touch to simply let him know how you feel would be a very different thing, especially if you did it without agenda, expectation, or pressure. Not just because the fact of your continued romantic interest is a potentially game-changing piece of information that this guy might really appreciate having, but also simply because it’s the truth.

So, that’s your caveat: You may reach out to this guy one more time, in whatever way you have available (a handwritten letter comes to mind), to say, “I still have feelings for you, and I want to be with you. If you want to talk about that, you know where to find me.”

And if you do this, I wish you all the best, including a reply from him that reopens the lines of communication between you. But while we’ll all hope for a good outcome, you’ll need to realize that you can’t orchestrate one. Whether or not to respond is entirely up to him, and letting him know how you feel is a one-shot deal. Which means that your next move, until or unless he tells you otherwise, should then be to make your best peace with what happened and start moving on.

Got something to say? Tell us in the comments! And to get advice from Auntie, email her at advice@sparknotes.com.
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