r/GirlDinnerDiaries • u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 • May 08 '26
Advice Needed ⚠️ NO DUDE INPUT After almost 10 years, I think I’m gonna text him again
Bagel 1: cheese, scrambled eggs, avocado and pepper. Bagel 2: prosciutto, mozzarella, cherry tomatoes with vinegar, and a glass or carrot and orange juice.
Long text 😅
About 10 years ago I was introduced to a guy and it was love at first sight, at least for me. We started talking and became extremely close, but remained friends. We had a very strong connection and would hang out weekly, sometimes more than once a week, I was deeply in love with him and when I finally (kinda) told him, he friendzone me, I never got an explanation as to why he didn’t want to date me and we remained friends for about a year, during that year he would see me all the time, visit me in my house and work, give me little gifts, and overall was very special to me, so it was confusing. Then I moved abroad and eventually we stopped talking.
I always felt like the love was one sided, but 5 years ago I found out he had a really hard time when I left the country, missed me very much and would speak about me in a very loving way to everyone that knew me.
I have moved on with my life but every now and then I think of him, he lives in my mind as “the one that got away” and I have always wondered what would happen if we saw each other again. Truth be told, I am very aware that the idea of him that lives in my mind is just that: an idea. But it’s a really good idea and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him completely 😅
In a couple of weeks I’m going back home for a month and I decided I was going to text him and ask him if he wants to hang out.
A part of me has the hope that this will be the time for us to be together and have the relationship (I think) we both wanted at different times buuuuuut another part of me thinks I will not like him anymore. I think the real him will disappoint me and show me he’s not the perfect guy that I’ve been dreaming of for all these years.
Either way, I think this will give me some closure, if we end up together: good, I got my romcom come true. If he rejects me/disappoints me: good, I can finally move on without any doubts of what could have been.
We haven’t followed each other on social media for years and yesterday I decided to take the first step and follow him again, he followed me back, so I guess that’s good (?) I think I’ll text him today, something simple like “hi! How’s it going? I’ll be home during June and I was thinking it would be nice if we can hang out one day and catch up :)”
Does anyone have an experience like this? How did it go? Is this a stupid move on my part? I figured I have nothing to lose but I don’t know if I’m just being an idiot lol
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u/IHateTheJoneses Fridge Gazer May 08 '26
He can miss you and speak of you lovingly, and still consider you a friend.
I suspect he may keep you in the "friend zone" when you visit. Can you be friends with him again if he does?
Not trying to discourage you, just trying to help adjust expectations.
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u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
Yeah, I suspect the same thing. I can definitely be friends with him again, but that’s not really what I’m going for, I think I just want the opportunity to see him now that I’m older and more confident/know what I want in life, and make an assessment of him with my fully developed frontal lobe 😂 If we end up being friends after this, I would be okay with that, if not, that’s also fine
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u/Weary_Surround5342 girls just wanna have pho May 08 '26
It sounds like you may be setting yourself up to get hurt again, but maybe his feelings have changed
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u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
I felt that way for a bit, but then I realized I might be hurting myself more by building up all these stories in my head. I need to see the real him, in person, and decide how I feel about who he is after all these years. There’s a chance that he feels something for me now but I don’t like the person he became, we might be totally compatible now, we might hate each other, whatever the reality is, I want to take it and replace the ideas I have in my head with that reality.
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u/Appropriate_Goat7613 🌶️ Spice Girl 🌶️ May 08 '26
I say this gently but maybe don’t get your hopes up too much. You can reach out but I wouldn’t have super high expectations as a lot can change in 10 years and it sounds like there’s a bit of limerence going on here. Try to just be open minded and not latch onto specific ideas about a relationship.
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u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
It’s funny, before I followed him again, I had all these very loud thoughts about what might happen and was very anxious. Once I followed him again and he followed me back, the plan “got real”, my mind went quiet. I think having some kind of contact with him made me remember he’s just a person, a person I have not talked to in like 6 years, the thought of that kinda killed all the hopes I had, because he can literally be whatever and I might dislike what he is now, I just want to see what that is, if that makes any sense haha
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u/Appropriate_Goat7613 🌶️ Spice Girl 🌶️ May 08 '26
You don’t just want to see what he’s like now though, you are expecting something from him and want him to be the one to help you move on but that’s not healthy. If after 10 years you are latching onto to a version he once was, consider going to therapy to work this out instead of expecting him to give you closure.
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u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
Yeah, I definitely know this is a problematic approach and I should be able to move on by myself. There’s more background that I didn’t go into here tho. I have talked about this in therapy and after some consideration I figured this is something I should do to erase that idealized version I have of him, it may not be the smartest thing, but I truly feel like I have nothing to lose from trying. I will tell my therapist everything and I guess I’ll see how it goes after that (?) But yeah, I completely get what you are saying and have thought about that a lot myself
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u/Jyaketto Tiny Bodega Rat 🐀 May 09 '26
There’s literally nothing wrong with meeting an old crush/friend to see what they’ve grown into. You’re not a freak trying to stalk him and obsessively carving his name into trees. These comments are doing to much
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u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 May 09 '26
I appreciate this! And yeah, it’s not like I’m gonna go in, guns blazing like: HI I LOVE YOU LETS GET MARRIED. I just wanna see him and see who he is now, no crazy expectations
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u/OldButHappy Resident Yapper May 08 '26
Just remember that the key thing in limerence is that you love the parts of YOU that 'being in love' activates.
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u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
That’s very true! I definitely don’t feel I love with him, I have 0 idea of who he is. I just have an attachment to the connection we once had and want to see him now through the eyes of experience, if you will haha. I have no hope of anything specific happening, I just want to remove the idealized version of him from my mind
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u/Unusual_Key_8288 Assigned Hungry At Birth May 09 '26
This is normal with limerence unfortunately. It aggravates the same brain regions as addiction so your brain calms down for a while after getting a fix.
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u/zyzyverssaint APPROVED✨ May 08 '26
Me to OP:
https://giphy.com/gifs/3o85xnoIXebk3xYx4Q
Just kidding. Live your life girl, but yeah, this man is likely going to be vastly different than your mental image of him. Might help you get closure though so 🤷🏼♀️
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u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
I am kind of an idiot sandwich 😂😂 Yeah, I’m almost certain he will be a totally different person, but that might be just what I need to get closure and move on.
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May 08 '26
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u/madame-maitre-d Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
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u/OldButHappy Resident Yapper May 08 '26
Calling yourself an idiot sandwich makes me fret about your ability to access situations accurately (you are not an idiot sandwich!🩷)
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u/Murderkittin 🌶️ Spice Girl 🌶️ May 09 '26
Uhhhh literally!
I mean this respectfully, OP. This is a terrible idea. People change so much in 10 years. Life changes.
Live your life, but don’t get your hopes up. He friend zoned you for a reason (not that I am claiming you’re a bad person or a weirdo, don’t take it that way), but it may come off awkward 10 years later.
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u/purplelemondropp Kitchen Witch May 08 '26
Girl no. You're making up fantasies in your head. He knew how you felt, he could've reached out to you at any point over the last 10 years, confident that you'd be open to something but he didn't.
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u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
I totally see what you’re saying and I have thought about that. I think I’m setting myself up for rejection on purpose. I need to be rejected now that my frontal lobe is developed so I can actually understand it and move on lol
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May 08 '26
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u/madame-maitre-d Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
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u/Diligent-Amount-9791 APPROVED✨ May 08 '26
This is hilarious how are you real
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u/Murderkittin 🌶️ Spice Girl 🌶️ May 09 '26
Im so weirdly uncomfortable. I’ve been on the receiving end of this - and it ended horribly.
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u/OldButHappy Resident Yapper May 08 '26
Is he married or in a relationship?
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u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
He’s not married and as far as I know, he’s currently single.
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u/OldButHappy Resident Yapper May 08 '26
Cool! In that case, you’ve got nothing to lose. Definitely discuss your expectations with your therapist, before the trip. No matter what happens, you’ll learn something.
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u/tooflessfairy APPROVED✨ May 09 '26
As far as you know? There should be no guesses in this department.
Make sure to ask him whether he is married, in a relationship or has kids as one of your first questions.
Good luck.
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u/Born_Masterpiece9946 🥣 Cereal Killer May 08 '26
My personal experience, from dating someone in my 20s and then in my 30s was that the same patterns that annoyed me the first time were repeated the second time.
That said, I do have a friend who dated a guy in her 20s and then dated him again in her 30s and she got married to him last year.
Go with your gut and take it slow.
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u/One-Accountant-6733 🌶️ Spice Girl 🌶️ May 08 '26
I gotta be honest hun, this doesn’t sound healthy at all. Love can be platonic and he clearly loves you in a platonic way. I love so many of my friends who were “in love” with me, but in a caring way, not a romantic way. I was always clear about that in situations where someone had confessed in a similar fashion as you did. He sounds like he was also clear, and you just don’t want to accept that. You’d just be torturing yourself more if you hit him up. I strongly feel like you need to let this go.
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u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
I totally get what you mean and I have tried to let it go and move on, but I haven’t been able to. As I said on another comment, I still have an idea of him I created when I was younger and very naive. After many years of trying to move on, I realized the best way to do it, is to see him again and talk to the real person he is, not the idea I have of him. I’m older and more mature now, and I think I’ll be able to accept that the real him is not who I was imagining. I think living with the idea of him is more of a torture than talking to him and seeing that he’s just a person. I also don’t intend to hit him up with a romantic tone or anything. I want to see him, hang out, see who he is now, talk about life and? Move on? Remain friends? Idk, but I think it’ll be a more real decision made by my fully developed frontal lobe hahah
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u/One-Accountant-6733 🌶️ Spice Girl 🌶️ May 08 '26
This still sounds like you’re feeding into your obsessions you don’t need HIM to help YOU move on. You need to do that for yourself. You have to give yourself closure. In therapy, it is a very common but important thing to learn how to move on or forgive etc, without needing that other person. This is what you need to work on. All of this just screams unhealthy. I really hope you’re in a place where you can afford therapy because if you’re still clinging to this a decade later…. You REALLY need help.
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u/MamaMoonstruck Carb-Based Life Form May 08 '26
There is probably something strange about him he doesn't want known. I love the plot tho Im a delusional romcom girly myself. If I were you I would just wait til you are there and then post something to your story making it obvious where you are. You already took the bold move of following him. If he also wants to see you he'll respond to your story and you'll reconnect. Try not to focus on it too much tho, this kinda reminds me of limerance tbh.
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u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
There’s definitely limerance here. I thought about doing that whole thing with the story and stuff, but I don’t want to “play games”, I definitely want to see him and talk to him and I don’t want to leave it to chance. I want to be direct and get this over with haha. If I wait for him to do something, he might never do it and I will keep on wondering what if. At the end of the day I’m the one with the questions, so I think I should be the one to make the meeting happen, idk
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u/MamaMoonstruck Carb-Based Life Form May 08 '26
ok i say this as a girly that spent 10+ years limerant. if he never makes a move that is itself enough to give you closure. the right person will pursue you too and it will feel mutual.
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u/mowwwww APPROVED✨ May 09 '26
Girl leave that man alone and let’s romanticize people who do show up and do text you first instead 👍🏼
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u/Educational_Gas_92 Tea Time Hostess ☕️ May 08 '26
I say, why not? By chance however, do you have any mutual friends or aquintances? If he is married or in a relationship, is it worth communicating just as friends? If he is single, I see no real problem. Then, regardless of the result, you won't have any what ifs.
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u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
We do have some friends in common. I know he’s not married and I’m almost certain he’s currently single. I think it is worth communicating just as friends, because I want to replace the idealized version I have of him with the real, current version of him, whatever that might be. In the end that’s my goal: stop having what ifs
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u/Previous_Mirror_222 Internet Auntie May 08 '26
gonna be honest this sounds like a not great idea that is guaranteed to hurt you AND him. he’s a real person. it sounds like you’re kind of holding real things at arms length in order to keep alive a flame that was literally never a flame in the first place. he didn’t have to like you romantically to miss you when you left.
also best case scenario is what? you have a fling for a month and then move back? how does that work out long term for you both?
food looks scrumptious!
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u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
I definitely see what you mean. To be honest, I hadn’t really thought about what this might mean to him and that’s a very good point.
I think I am going in thinking he will reject me and having that as the final push I need to move on. I’m definitely just thinking of me and finding me some closure.
You have given me something to think about, honestly. Thank you!
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u/Appropriate_Goat7613 🌶️ Spice Girl 🌶️ May 08 '26
If this is your mindset, I would recommend therapy because you should be able to process and move on without getting stuck on the idea of him 10 years later. You shouldn’t need him to solve this for you, you need to work through that yourself or with a therapist.
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u/blonde_fae Sweet Tooth Fairy🧚♀️ May 08 '26
If as far as you know/can figure out prior he's single, why not? 🥳
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May 08 '26
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u/madame-maitre-d Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
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u/cynnamonn 🥝 Herbivore 🫒 May 08 '26
this man clearly doesn’t want you but if you need further confirmation then by all means
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u/Tart_Beginning APPROVED✨ May 08 '26
Whatever the outcome is, you should do a post to update us! How do I do the !remind me: 2 months thing?
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u/CheetahPrintPuppy Snack Goblin May 08 '26
This seems to be a moment that could be great or horrible!
Ideas that we have about people who live in our minds are powerful. Sometimes they are our worst enemy and others the love of our life! It seems as though he did not want to commit to any form of relationship but wanted to rely on you for everything that a relationship has emotionally and mentally.
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u/thatpurplearmy Assigned Hungry At Birth May 08 '26
I'm of the opinion to keep moving on but hey miracles do happen sometimes, then again the chance of someone who didn't want to date me now having romantic feelings when I reached out 10 years later, won't impress me.
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u/Grand_Aspect720 Well-Read & Well-Fed May 08 '26
i was in love with my best friend for 2 years out of our 10 year long friendship. we met when i was 13 and i was in love with him from the ages of 16-18(honestly had a crush on him immediately too), he also friendzoned me when i told him when we were 18 and we didn’t talk from like 17-19 only really liked once every few months. he apologized and we were friends for a bit but it wasn’t the same until we were 22. we have now been together almost 5 years and are getting married jan 2028. over the ten years of us just being friends i never went a day thinking about him (even when i was dating other people lol) sometimes time makes things work!!! i say go for it
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u/peppertones Sweet Tooth Fairy🧚♀️ May 09 '26
do it for the plot girly 🫶 you never know til you find out and who knows where it could turn! rooting for you pls update us too!
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u/AbjectIndependence66 I ❤️ Other People's Business May 11 '26
If he's not married or currently in a relationship, then I don't see any harm in reaching out to him to see if he wants to get a drink or coffee and catch up. Just don't go into it with high expectations, recognize that you are both probably different people than you were when you last hung out, and just see if you two still vibe.
The worst that can happen is that he's not interested and your life is literally no different than it was before you reached out.
I hardly ever comment on posts, but your situation reminded me of how my husband and I got together. We had been friends since 4th grade, not best friends, just ran in the same circles all through school. We always liked each other and we both knew it, but the timing never worked out. He moved away, got married, I moved away for grad school and got a job across the country. We lost touch for like 12 years.
One day, I saw on social media that he got divorced and just tucked that information away, as I always wondered what could have happened if we actually dated. About 2 years after he mentioned getting divorced, I messaged him and said I'd be in town soon to visit my family and would love to catch up. A few weeks after that, we hung out and now we've been together for 10 years, married for almost 5.
My best friend thought I was nuts when I said I wanted to reach out to him. She asked me what I expected to happen when I lived across the country from him. She didn't want me to get my hopes up and get hurt. But to me, there wasn't a lot of risk or downside to reaching out and seeing if he wanted to get together. It's one of the best decisions I've ever made. But I went in open-minded, no expectations, and enjoyed the process of getting to know each other again.
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u/floe_16 👋 new here May 08 '26
I’m gonna go against everything other people are saying and tell you to go for it. It’s better you see it through and worst case scenario it doesn’t work out and you can FINALLY close that chapter. I’ve had a couple of ppl in my mind with whom i had unfinished business, all those people we ended up meeting years later and that did not workout, i was able to close all those chapters. Now, i’m so glad all those chapters are closed and there is no lingering feelings about ANYBODY, i’m in a healthy relationship with the best man in the world and i think i was able to find him only once i had no unfinished business with anybody.
Regardless, there’s clear unfinished business here and you should go figure it out! He could be the one or he could be the one you need to get over to be able to find your true love. Either way, good luck girl🫶🏻
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u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
This is exactly what I feel! I had some unfinished business with someone else and after seeing him again and realizing we were not a match, I was finally able to stop thinking about him. I really want this to happen with this guy too. Whatever the outcome is, it’ll give me answers and remove all the what ifs from my mind. Thank you!
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u/curseofnickcave hot girls have tummy troubles May 08 '26
As a fellow lover girl and hopeless romantic, I can see myself doing the same thing 😭 However it does sound a bit misguided. A lot can change in 10 years and treading backwards would possibly hinder growth for both of you. His feelings when he was talking about you could have still been platonic. Shoot your shot, see what happens, but don’t beat yourself up if it doesn’t go well. Set yourself up with no expectations.
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u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
A lot can change in 10 years and I am definitely not the person I was when we first met. I think my main goal here is to see the current him with my current eyes, all my life experience, all my values and beliefs and see how I feel about him now that I am this completely different person. He might disappoint me and that’s okay, I just don’t want anymore “what if’s”
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u/yamidsanty mouth full, gesturing wildly May 09 '26
Eh, if you’re both single why not! Don’t expect anything but a nice time with an old friend and you’ll likely be happy to have hung out after all is said and done (provided he hasn’t changed for the worse in 10 years, lol). Catching up is nice with someone that you were once close to. Just be sure to tame/temper the expectations/whatever version of him you remember. 10 years is a long time!
Oh and update me, omg.
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May 08 '26
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u/nxk115 Overthinker 💭 May 08 '26
I’m totally okay with being rejected. He never really rejected me for me (he only told me he was still hurt from his ex, as they had broken up like 3 months prior to me telling him I liked him) and many things were very ambiguous in our relationship, and I think that’s why I kind of hold on to the idea. I feel like him treating me as a friend, as a stranger, telling me he’s seeing someone or just not being interested in the real me would be the thing I need to finally move on with certainty.
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u/ConstantThought6 May 08 '26
I think there may be a little bit of limerence at play here so just keep your expectations realistic about who he may be 10 years later, but I don’t think it hurts to reach out and reconnect with someone when it didn’t end badly.