So I met this dude on tinder late July of this year and he was everything that I wanted in a guy. He was super funny, treated me so nicely, and was a genuinely sweet and amazing person to talk to. We immediately clicked—we texted nonstop, facetimed multiple times a week sometimes until almost 4 am, and honestly I thought that he could’ve been the one for me. He lived 2 hours away so we didn’t get to see each other, but it felt worth it to me. He would always compliment me, hype me up when I posted a cute pic on my snap story, and said things like “ur so sexy” “you’re different from other girls” “nobody is a real as you”, amongst other things. He honestly treated me as if I was his gf and even hinted that he wanted a relationship in the future.

Then I noticed after maybe a month of talking he started to lag a lot, or would just not talk to me for days at a time. Sometimes he would reach out first, but a lot of the time I would have to spark a conversation and he would respond, but the conversations were short. I had asked him about his distance and he told me he was going thru family issues, and that was completely fine of course and I offered my emotional support.

It had been 3 months since we first met and we hadn’t talked until he randomly hits me up again after maybe two weeks without talking at all. However It felt like nothing had changed and we facetimed 2 nights in a row. But then the next night, I found out thru Instagram that he had gotten into a relationship with someone else. He didn’t say a single word to me or even hinted at the fact that he had been seeing someone else for about 3 weeks. I was really confused and hurt so I confronted him and he claimed he had no idea that I liked him more than a friend, and that he didn’t lead me on, even though I told him that I did VERY recently before then. I was extremely hurt and told him that I needed some space from him. He told me he wanted to remain friends, but respects my space. The fact that he was with someone else wasnt what bothered me, it was that despite him claiming that I was one of “realest” friends, he had hide this from me, and his response felt more like damage control than a sincere apology. His story didn’t really add up to me.

It’s been almost a month since this all happened and despite what went down, I really miss him. I’ve been in a lot of pain and tried to get over this with casual sex with other guys, which has worked for the most part lol, but I feel better overall about the situation. Is it right for me to reach out and try to forgive him and work towards being friends again? Or was what he did too shady and manipulative?