I worked at a place for two months and met this colleague with whom I got along really well. He's 25 and I'm 30. We flirted a lot but nothing ever actually happened. There was a strong vibe between us that was very palpable, I could just feel it in the air. We touched arms, smiled a lot, talked really close, the usual obvious signs of attraction. Over time I think I started to develop feelings but there's some things that make me very confused: 1) He always takes very long to reply to my texts (multiple days) and sometimes does it on purpose to not open the messages even though he's online. When he does reply he's nice and even a bit flirty but never really takes the initiative to text me. 2) A few times I tried to get closer to him and he got all red and nervous and didn't respond back, although he normally is quite confident when flirting with me. 3) He tells me I'm "trouble". 4) He kind of hints that he feels attracted to me. One time I got the feeling that he was hinting me to go for him, to "pressure him" I think those were the words. The thing is I'm not working there anymore, I left two weeks ago. So I'm not around him anymore. We never met up outside work and he never made an attempt to. A week ago I sent him a message just saying hi and asking how his week has been. He hasn't opened the message (left it on two grey ticks) for multiple days. Two days ago I saw that he read it but still doesn't reply. I feel like I'm not going to see him again which makes me confused because I really felt we had a thing going on. I'd like to get to know him better but now I feel like he's not open to that and I have no idea why. I thought maybe he has a girlfriend but I find strange that that hasn't come up yet. Or maybe he has someone else he's interested? I'm starting to think that he just wasn't that interested at all but I kind of find it hard to believe that. Maybe I was just a work crush that he wants to move on from, but not understanding the reason is messing me up.
Why is he giving me mixed signals?
