Are we secretly communicating through social media or am I nuts?

[Letstakeitbacktothenineties]

Ok, so this is quite hard to explain/understand maybe, but I know I’m not imagining it 🙈
Used to go out with a guy when in my teens, lived in the same area, had the same friends etc. I moved away, he moved away..and so life goes.
around ten years ago, we connected on Fb and began chatting, I was with someone at the time, he wasn’t. We chatted as friends but had the most incredible connection, I’d look forward to hearing from him, he was so interesting, clever, funny etc and there was just something so strong between us. I live abroad and regularly went back to our home town, as did he. He asked to meet up many times (as friends) I really wanted to but ending up backing out due to my partner at the time. He wasn’t happy I don’t think and we stopped contact for ages. He’d occasionally contact me, every couple of years and I’d feel over the moon about it but was never in a position to meet up as by that stage I was pregnant and scared it would be more than friends. He ended up meeting someone (I could see from his social media) and he moved abroad and got married, I felt pretty devastated and didn’t want to see pics etc so unfriended him on Fb etc. I did a sneaky look on Instagram a few times (he had profile open) but then he put on private, mine was open at times and then on private.
Now for the crazy sounding part…when I’ve had mine open for a while, his is then open not long after. When I put mine back on private, his is then put back on private. I put mine on private for a long time (due to pics of Dd) when I put it open, a few days later he was gone..on Instagram and Fb and had blocked me (friend is still able to see him) and so this pattern continues sometimes. My point is that after every time I’ve put it on public so he can see my pics..a few days later he does something with his account.
I realise this sounds weird and as though I’m reading too much into things..but I really don’t think I am, am I?!

Why do you keep setting your profile to public?

Is it because you want him to see it? You said you have it private because you have photos of dd. Leave it private!

If you want him to look then just send him a friend request. Honestly man, what's the worst that can happen? So what if he declines it, you're not in contact anyway?
And if he does accept, then you can stop with the childish games.

Instead of trying to analyse ridiculous patterns in his private/public insta page, why dont you just get in contact with him? This is all sounding really quite obsessive and unhealthy. Even if he was responding to your actions- so what? you are checking his instagram every few hours by the sound of it so even if he was changing his to yours, that just means you are both acting a bit intense and weird. The very fact you check his insta so often to notice patterns indicates you are doing it too. Contact him and say hi, at least then you'll know one way or the other and you can stop this odd fixation on his insta settings

It’s not a coincidence and I wonder if he’s thinking the same.
I bet you come up on his suggested friends so he will
know you’ve been looking?
why don’t you just request him?
or lay a trap?! X

But why are you obsessively checking whether his profile is private, public or blocking you? What does this change? Send him a message if you want to reconnect. Best way is to leave it alone, forget about him and his profile. You are stalking and obsessing with this, which is not healthy.

OP asks "am I nuts". Majority of people say "yes... Yes you are"... OP: "OK. Well here is why I think you are all wrong"....

You went out with a guy 20 odd years ago. Why the fuck are you still checking his profiles on social media????? What do you want to achieve from this whole scenario you have built up in your head?? Ridiculous situation!

What do you think this code is communicating?
That he is stalking your profiles as well as you stalking his? Or is it like a morse code? Blocked is a dot, unblocked is a dash?
If he wanted to communicate with you, he'd communicate with you. The easy way. By saying hi.

I think you are making a lot of leaps and for you to even come up with this it must mean you are obsessively checking his sm.

Let's assume he is communicating coded messages via activating and deactivating his social media and blocking and unblocking you - he's married. If he's sending you messages in code via the internet then why? To try to get you to send naked pictures? Have an online affair? Get you to say hey, I've been monitoring you extremely closely over however many years and I've noticed that you seem to be communicating with me in code.

Why not message him and ask how he is?

Oh. I see in a later post you say he may not still be married.

Well that would make coded communication even more bizarre since there would be no wife to hide his communications from.

Op if people say yes. He’s sending you secret coded messages, by his profile settings on insta, you are having a covert messaging system with him and whenever he changes his settings it is about you and your secret messages between each other, the blocking you has meaning as part of this secret messaging system, What then? What will you do?

On a separate note, do you online date, get to meet guys?

This is the advice a 14 year old might give. 🙄

It could easily be a coincidence. I read your OP and struggled to see any direct relevance other than the point where he blocked you.

I agree. Laying "traps" is really juvenile and at best all it will show is that he's stalking you the very same amount as you are stalking him. That doesnt reflect well on him if he's still married. Do you really want someone who behaves like this when married?

What sort of trap would you lay? Trap him into doing what?

Let’s assume for a moment that he is communicating in this way - would that not make you run for the hills. I mean, what explanation could there be other than him being deranged?

It doesn’t look as if OP has any real reason to think he is no longer married, it sounds to me like wishful thinking. OP please move on from this, it’s not healthy.

You need to send him a message or you'll regret it forever. If you're single and he's single then there's no issue. The only reason I can imagine a man pussyfooting around a woman he is attracted to though is if he is not in fact single.

I'd send him a message, you can either reconnect or you can put it behind you if he ignores you! No harm done.

It seems to me that he is potentially obsessing over you (and you aren't doing much better tbh). Neither of those things is healthy and I would suggest you just block him and move on. It's easy to imagine 'what if' but honestly that's just fantasy land.

@Letstakeitbacktothenineties I’m not being funny do you actually want to have contact with him? I can’t understand all this private/ public nonsense but seriously life is too short of you want to speak to him reach out and if not forget about it. Worst case scenario you get nothing back and you move on.

Married or not, why would anyone want a relationship with someone who chooses weirdly passive aggressive instagram settings as a mode of communication?

Life is not some sort of dubious teenage romance novel where it’s oh so romantic and enticing to behave weirdly. In real life, people who want to communicate with people send them a sodding message saying ‘hi! It’s been years. How are you?’

Confusion101 · Today 07:34

OP asks "am I nuts". Majority of people say "yes... Yes you are"... OP: "OK. Well here is why I think you are all wrong"....

You went out with a guy 20 odd years ago. Why the fuck are you still checking his profiles on social media????? What do you want to achieve from this whole scenario you have built up in your head?? Ridiculous situation!
This OP!!!!
You started the thread asking what people thought and it was obvious you wanted people to be telling you 'omg, he totally loves you hun. Trap him on insta and then you'll definitely get married to each other'.
When that didn't happen you changed your tune to try and sound a little more nonchalant but too late, we had already noticed your agenda.
For a 35 year old mother you are giving this far too much head space. Try and find something exciting in RL to focus on instead.

I think maybe you should get some kind of therapy. This isn’t normal healthy, adult behaviour. I can imagine this would’ve been the kind of childish obsessive shit I might have been going on with at the age of 14 (luckily social media wasn’t even invented yet). I don’t ever change my settings on social media and I certainly wouldn’t know if someone else was doing it. Unless maybe I was stalking them. Again, that’s probably normal for a young teenager. Not so much for a grown woman.

You started the thread asking what people thought and it was obvious you wanted people to be telling you 'omg, he totally loves you hun. Trap him on insta and then you'll definitely get married to each other'.

Sadly some people did say something akin to this. Which is slightly alarming.

Ok thanks everyone

Same

If you AREN'T stalking him then how do you know he's not just constantly changing his profile randomly and it just coincides with yours?

You seem to think he only changes it when you change yours - but how do you know, UNLESS you're checking it all the time?

You are married with a child seriously!! This sounds like the stuff a 14 year old would write. If you are unhappy in your marriage work on that/seek a divorce, I can't imagine someone in a happy marriage doing what you are doing here, even if it is just stalking open social media profiles.

If you divorce by all means contact him, you'll probably get "I'm married with 3 kids" in his reply at which point you permanently block him.