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I reconnected with an old flame about 7 months after my D was final. Several great conversations led to an amazing night of making out at his house. I said I wasn't ready to have sex, he said no problem and also said a few things like " I want to do whatever I need to do to keep you from disappearing again" and "I was never ok with us not being in each other's lives"...sweet...or so I thought.

We have tons of history, had been really close as teenagers/young adults but hadn't spoken in years. I told him we didn't know each other well enough anymore to consider dating yet, but there was too much chemistry to be just friends. I said I was confused and figured we'd talk more as I was planning on being in my hometown (where he still lives) for about a month.

The next morning he texts me that he's done some thinking and we're definitely better off as friends, he's not in a good place in his life to be dating right now, and if I don't want to be just friends then he understands and we'll just go our separate ways. Um...what?

I was confused and hurt, felt a little led on, also struggled with how it felt to connect with a man for the first time post-M and have it taken away. At the time I'd thought that kissing another man would make me throw up...then was pleased to find that was the last thing on my mind! To have that one night then have it taken away was pretty painful in a way I wasn't yet prepared to deal with.

I made several more attempts to talk to him - texts, emails, mostly went ignored or got really short answers. (I've since learned that one ignored text is one too many and I don't do that with anyone anymore. Yay progress!)

One final attempt was an email with full transparency of how I'd felt about our friendship, what I'd been thinking about over the years, and what I was thinking now. Lots of vulnerability and scary honesty from me about deep feelings for him that had really never gone away, that I'd tried to ignore in the past and was wanting to explore now. His response? Crickets.

So, I moved on and took a lot of valuable lessons from how I responded to the situation, chalked it up as progress towards a healthy relationship with myself and eventually the right man for me. This morning, nearly a year from the one and only night we saw each other, I get an email that he's trying to connect with me on LinkedIn. No personal message, just the generic one. Wtf?

Doesn't LinkedIn sometimes send an invite to everyone in your email contacts? Maybe it's possible he didn't realize I'm in there and this is just part of that mass email, not really individually to me?

If not then that seems ridiculous! Why would we connect on a professional networking site after we made out and then you ignored me?

I'm sorry Mixed, but it sounds like a generic "LinkedIn" mailing.

{{{{hugs}}}}}

It hurts.

k9

What a sad story I really feel for you and what a horrible guy!
I'm sorry he hurt you so much, but really a year out after he ignored your heart felt pleas like that, who cares whether or not the linkedin contact request was deliberate? Do yourself a favour, delete the message and forget about him.

[This message edited by MyVoice at 5:07 PM, April 30th (Wednesday)]

Hmmmm....

I'd say your 'rejection' of him (in his mind) has brought about this turn. He is overreacting IMHO. Or he was after some NSA sex - the slightly less seedy version because you have history together. Or he had something else on the boil that was more willing to jump in STAT. Some of them smell blood in the water and try to take advantage of any opportunity.

LinkedIn has an option where you can link it to your contacts and it will send out requests (eg. I've seen LinkedIn profiles show up as photos in my contacts). It asks you before doing this but it does it globally - so it doesn't ask for each contact if that make sense.

I'd ignore it personally. Not enough time has passed for you to be in contact even casually. I think it was rude of him to not respond or acknowledge your email so I'd continue to give him a wide berth.

I have accidentally sent out LinkedIn requests to anyone I ever had on any email - it created a mess, and I didn't realize I did it until after I did it.

I would move, because even if it was intentional, true intent and interest involve more than that, and it sounds like you deserve way better.

If you have known him a long time the rules are different.

He has shown a deeper level of disrespect by not returning your calls even if to keep things casual or have an honest discussion.

Depending on the level of friendship I would let it go for now but don't intiate contact or accept a random invitation. If you extend him the courtesy of putting your thoughts on paper he should at least give you the courtesy of a response of any kind.

Regardless of "how" the LinkedIn request happened, I'd suggest giving him the same response. Crickets.

And then give yourself a big ol' hug!! (((mixedemotions)))

Thanks everybody! He looked at my profile, so I'm guessing that means it wasn't an accident, but I like the point that it really doesn't matter either way.

At least it's a nice way of seeing my own progress! I still care, but so much less than before. Self pat on the back, self hug, and spending time this weekend with people who would never treat me like that.