Trying to understand mixed signals from someone you are dating

Should I just ask him what this is?

Several people here did ask, in plain words, what this was and where it was going, and the asking did not end the uncertainty the way they hoped. What came back was usually an apology without an explanation, a non-answer about seeing where things go, or a reply that the contradiction was theirs to resolve, and in more than one case the question itself was followed by silence.

The people who stayed after that kept carrying the same doubt, sometimes for months, because a stated intention did not turn into consistent contact or plans. The ones who got any footing did not get it from an answer he gave; they got it from watching what kept repeating, and letting the repetition count as the more reliable account of what he wanted.

Ember’s view. Asking is not the risk you think it is, and it is also not the door you think it is. The question you are really asking is whether he will supply a certainty that his behaviour so far has withheld, and for the people here, words never settled it while the pattern stayed the same.

So ask if you want to, but ask for something with a date and a shape attached, and then watch what happens by that date rather than what was said on the day. The people here who did that paid for it by losing the ambiguity they had partly been living on, and by having to sit with an answer that arrived as silence.

Does he actually like me, or is he keeping me around?

Every person here got two messages at once: words and touch that said yes, he wants to claim you, forehead kisses and an arm around you all night, a confession of feelings, and actions that said something else, still on the apps, gone for days, over the card limit and silent, back to his ex whenever she reappeared.

None of them got the contradiction resolved by the person; asked about it, he said the contradiction was all in their head, or let's see where this goes, or said sorry with no explanation, or vanished. What resolved it, for the ones it resolved for, was the pattern: the third disappearance, the return that came only when money or his ex ran out, and several say plainly that the pattern now speaks louder than the words.

The tenderness was real to them, and that is what made it hard; a few noticed that its being real to them did not settle what it was to him. What people here would say is not that he did or did not like them, but that a person who wants you shows up, initiates and makes plans, and they were the only one doing those things.

He came back again. What does that mean?

Several people here have watched the person come back after going quiet: a like on the app where they first met, new music sent with no message, an enthusiastic hi as if nothing had happened, a return with reasons about money or family. The returns had one thing in common: the question that had been left open, why he left, what this is, whether there was someone else, was never addressed on the way back in.

For a couple of them the return reopened the wound as much as it closed it; they could not tell whether it was regret, fear of losing them, or just the door being checked. The ones who let the return in without the question answered found themselves back at the same place within weeks, waiting again when he went quiet again.

What this light holds is that a return is not a change; the change, where there was one, was the person here deciding what an acceptable return would have to include.