I had an unusual exchange with someone recently. In which he messaged me and I wrote back to him ‘you’re a strange one, do you know that?’

And he asked for clarification and we went back and forth and again I said ‘but this goes back to my original comment that you’re a strange one…’

Essentially what had happened was this: I started messaging with a man ages ago. Last year sometime. He’s smart, he amusing, he’s good looking. But conversation tailed off with no mention of meeting or taking things any further. That’s fine. I wasn’t upset about that.

Then out of nowhere months later, an hour before I was going to an organised social event he messaged me to say ‘Oh! You live close by to this (organised social) – are you going to be there tonight?’ I wrote back and I said …yes, I was planning on attending. How very flattering that I’m such an afterthought though, and I added a laughing emoji so he knew it wasn’t that serious.

I was planning on attending to meet up with another friend anyway but I did see him that evening and we had a brief conversation. It was lovely to meet him. Some people don’t look anything at all like their photos, some people can’t bridge online communication with in person communication. But that wasn’t the case here. I really enjoyed meeting him. After we met up, I sent him a message letting him know that I’d enjoyed meeting up and was curious to know what interest he had in seeing me again?

He didn’t respond. And then several weeks later it comes up again in a roundabout way and I told him I asked about his interest in me and there was no response? To which he said he’d been out of the country on business and still he provided no direct response regarding his interest in me in either direction.

Then! I posted a new picture of me in the place where we’ve been messaging. And he sends me a very suggestive message. To myself I think, oh okay. Guess that answers the question about his interest in me and we do engage in some flirty messages. At one point he says ‘should I just pop over then?’ and I said no, but at a more suitable time and place I’d say yes… And in response to this he says something non-committal and the conversation comes to an end.

Weeks after this, I post another picture and he sends me another vaguely suggestive message and that’s when I told him he’s a strange one.

Because my messaging is inconsistent, he asks? I guess, I reply. But that’s only part of it. The other half is that you’ve done nothing or avoided times where I’ve said ‘let’s move this forward’ Our initial conversation ended because there was no solid plans made. He met me at that social but didn’t respond to me afterwards about me suggesting plans. We engage in some spicy discussion and I said ‘let’s meet up at another time and place’ but he doesn’t take me up on my offer.

In the end I said it feels like either you’re not that into me or you are into me but only as an online distraction? And he tried to be very direct at that point and be like, should we meet up for a drink? in a bar? in a bar in a hotel room in case we want to move things forward? When?

And I had to tell him I don’t think our communication styles or our directness in terms of what we want is aligned. So no. But good luck.

It was a lesson in frustration more than anything else. But there’s no way that I would accept this sort of inconsistency and lack of clarity about his interest in me. Anyone’s interest in me. If someone wants to date me or fuck me, just be clearer about it. I don’t mind being direct about my interest in someone else but I can only take that so far and this many near-misses just makes me certain that a level of miscommunication and lack of clarity will continue to happen. And continue to send me bonkers.