TLDR - title. but full post makes more sense lol
like the title says, i miss this guy i used to be involved with 3/4 years ago. he was funny and sweet and he made me feel happy and safe and like i could just be myself with him, baggage and trauma and all and he didn't judge me or let it bother him, he liked me regardless. he told me he loved me but i had to let him go (too complicated to go into the reasons here now) and despite his promises to stay by my side and both our efforts to stay in each other's lives, it couldn't work.
(you can skip reading the next para btw bc it's long and not that important ig but good context tho)
the first few months after we stopped talking it hurt like hell, i was so heartbroken that - although i try to deny it to myself now - im certain i was in love with him. i'd never felt that way about anyone til him and, even tho i've tried with many other guys after him, haven't since. it sucks so much because as cringe as this sounds, i think he may have been 'the one'. he even 'popped up' in my life again a couple times afterwards, the first time he was talking to my friend several months after we called it quits - but he said to my friend that he had never loved me and that he'd lied to me but my friend was convinced he was lying bc why would he feel the need to say that unless he was hurting and also the fact that he wrote me long letters when i tried to cut ties? the second time was 1.5yrs after we called it quits, he said asked my friend to ask me about something, i then spoke to him through her phone and we ended up talking for a couple hours and it felt really good and kinda like closure, except that i had found out he had a new girl (but he denied it to me when i mentioned her) and he told me not to get involved with any guys after my friend told him some stuff about me lol. i then found out he broke up with his new girl just a couple weeks after talking to me, apparently 'bc she was annoying' but due to the timing my friends think it may have had something to do with me...anyways then i didnt hear from him after that til a fake snapchat account by his sister's name tried to add me last summer, but im 95% sure it was him bc his sister doesnt even know me and she has no reason to talk to me even if she did and we have no mutuals lol. since then i've gone completely lowkey, deleting all socials, only a few close ppl have my number, and i dont go out much so he has no way of contacting me now even if he waned (which makes me kinda sad but i cant do anything about it bc if he comes back into my life - which logically i dont want, but stupidly i do - i want it to be bc he found me and reached out, rather than the other way around).
ANYWAYS even after successfully moving on and 'forgetting' about him, he still crossed my mind from time to time. but now for some reason i can't get him off my mind recently. my life has changed a lot since then, i have my friends and family, a job i love that keeps me busy, hobbies that keep me occupied, house-moving and of course netflix haha but he still manages to cross my mind multiple times a day. sometime i feel like i just miss what we had and not him, but then i resent him for leaving my life? so i must still have some lingering feelings for him still if im mad that he's gone? other times i feel like i just miss him full stop. it's so confusing, i dont get it. ive already deleted all the texts and pictures and his number, i dont talk about him with anyone anymore, i dont stalk his socials (tho i might now) so what more can i do to let him go completely?