My unusual connection with a friends-with-benefits (33M) at 29F. Is there anything more I can try?
I met someone online, and we began a casual relationship in January 2023. At first, I didn't think much of him, and we started hooking up, which led me to become attached. We stopped communicating after a text exchange turned awkward when I casually mentioned that I "like" him during one of our encounters. Looking back, it seemed like a careless thing to say, and I couldn't pinpoint why I did. We didn't talk again until February 2024 when he unexpectedly reached out. I had spotted him near my home a few days earlier but chose to ignore him as I walked past. Fast forward, and we resumed seeing each other casually through the summer. I noticed he had an impressive memory, recalling nearly every detail of our past conversations. He'd reference things I said during our first meeting or comments I made the previous year. Things then took another turn—I'd started realizing that our encounters coincided suspiciously with the times I stepped out of my apartment to run errands. We were still connected through the dating app we met on, which indicates how close someone is to you, adding to my discomfort. Things escalated further when he mentioned he was interviewing for a job in my industry, which is quite niche and closely related to where I work. I was honestly taken aback by this coincidence. Given that he had previously expressed that he considered us strictly casual friends with benefits, this felt excessive. It made me uneasy when he became moody after I went on a date, probing about where I had been and reminding me that he knew people who worked there. Generally, he seemed very interested in my dating life and romantic history, sometimes making subtle digs about my job. At one point, during a hookup, he asked when I last had sex, and another time, he wanted to know when I last finished. I didn’t answer because we weren’t exclusive, but his probing was unsettling. All of this gave me a sense of possessiveness and jealousy from him. There was also a summer incident where a neighbor began stalking me. I decided to go off the grid completely and used that as the reason for deleting the app, feeling it gave him too much awareness of my whereabouts. Additionally, we shared a community of activists, and I ran into him several times, making me feel he was more intertwined in my life than I had anticipated. A couple of months ago, I ended things with him, expressing that I felt "too attached." He reiterated that he wasn’t interested in a committed relationship and put the decision of whether to continue on me. This struck me as somewhat defeatist when I was looking for solutions, and honestly, I'm not someone who thrives in casual arrangements as he framed it. I've been grappling with his contradictory behavior and how it clashes with his stated intentions. While I don't have concrete proof of anything, I feel a need for validation that I did the right thing by ending our situation and blocking him. I recognize there’s potential for plausible deniability, but this whole situation just feels off. In summary, I ended a friends-with-benefits arrangement but still feel uneasy about it. I’m unsure if I should take further action or if my instincts are valid.