Why is he avoiding me? There’s nothing quite as confusing and maddening as when a person you thought was really interested in you stops showing any interest whatsoever. After all, things were going really well and you were on the right path, so why would he mess things up now? If you’re in this situation, here are a few reasons it might be happening.
- He’s trying to slow things down. Not everyone is prepared to get swept off their feet. He may feel that things have gotten out of hand and that he needs to take a step back. This either means that he wants to let things fade away entirely or carry on in a more casual way. In either case, he isn’t being straightforward with his thoughts and you deserve a clear explanation.
- He’s already in a relationship. Without realizing it, you may have been “the other woman” all along. The reason he’s cut off communication isn’t that he’s lost interest, but because his partner has discovered that he was cheating, or he met you during a relationship break and he’s since gotten back together with the person. If this is the case, he’s likely not in a position to contact you without jeopardizing his primary relationship even further.
- He’s busy. It doesn’t feel great to be low on his priority list all of a sudden, but he may be too busy to respond to every text now that the two of you have established that you’re interested in each other. If you know for a fact that he has a demanding career and a packed schedule, try not to take it personally. If the relationship progresses and you still feel like a second priority, you’ll be well within your rights to demand more.
- He’s bad at texting. Some people just don’t look at their phones very often. You may not have realized this about him at first because people tend to be highly responsive when they’ve just met someone they’re excited about. But you may now be seeing the real him, which includes his technology habits. If that is the case, it’s actually a good sign. He’s relaxing around you and feels like he can be his true self.
- He needs space to think about where things are going. Have things moved too quickly? Were you both looking for something casual only to fall head over heels for each other? If the answer is “yes,” he’s probably having a brief existential crisis and that’s why he’s avoiding you. He needs to think about whether or not he can adjust his needs to fit the pace of the relationship. He may be avoiding you because he doesn’t want you to think he has doubts about where things are going. You can be upfront with him and simply ask if he’s feeling like things are moving too quickly. He may appreciate the understanding.
- He’s ghosting you. If he’s really ignoring your texts, he may be trying to fade out of your life without giving you any signal that he’s ending things. While this is probably the worst-case scenario because it’s such a cruel type of rejection, consider yourself better off for having escaped a relationship with him. Anyone who ghosts a person who really cares about them is not someone you would be happy with.
- He lost his phone. Let’s be clear that this is far more likely to be a lie he uses to cover up his voluntary disappearance rather than reality, but it could be true. Everyone’s lost their phone at some point, so it’s faintly possible that it coincided with you sending him messages. At least give him the benefit of the doubt until enough time has passed that he would definitely have gotten a replacement phone.
- He wasn’t taking things as seriously as you were. Everyone comes into new relationships with different agendas. It’s good to be open about what you’re looking for from the beginning, but no one wants to seem too intense by confronting someone about their intentions on the first date either. If he hasn’t been upfront with you about what he wants, he may have been hiding the fact that he’s not looking for anything serious. Him avoiding you, in this case, is not total rejection, it’s just a sign that the two of you are wanting different things from the relationship.
- He doesn’t want to seem too eager. Not all explanations are negative. He may be playing hard to get, thinking that the less interested he seems, the more obsessed you’ll be. Mind games like this can be sexy, but sometimes they can be taken too far and lead to misunderstanding. Depending on how you feel about this kind of dynamic, you could ask him straight up if he’s playing games, or give him some of his own medicine by becoming less communicative as well.
- He’s playing the field. If you met on a dating app, it’s entirely possible that he’s still swiping and talking to people. Dating apps have made it abundantly clear that there are plenty of fish in the sea, and some people find it difficult to explore just one option at a time. He may think that, unless you’ve made an explicit agreement to be exclusive, he’s free to engage with multiple people.
