First time seeing my ex in almost 1 1/2 months and feeling slightly conflicted

So for those of you who aren’t familiar with my story, the short version is that I dated my ex online for almost two years and then moved from New York to Indiana to be with him. After a little more than a month, we broke up and because I had no where to go, I continued to live with him for almost two months after that and moved out because his uncle who owned the building where our apartment was at decided that he didn’t want me living there if my ex and I weren’t together.

After moving out, I intentionally went through the 30 day no contact. There were a couple of breaks in the no contact because he wanted to get his key back and we tried to arrange him picking it up, but our schedules didn’t seem to quite work out for us to meet up.

Finally, this week after almost six weeks of not really talking, he asked if I was free Friday afternoon and I was, so he asked if we could meet up and maybe hang out. I told him we could meet up and hanging out was up to him if he wanted to.

So he comes and picks me up tonight, and I won’t lie, when I came downstairs after he was in the house (I had been in the shower when he got here and my room mate let him in for me) I had the nervous butterflies in my stomach and had to fight myself to not run up to him and hug him (fortunately I fought the urge). I returned his key and he took me grocery shopping. When we took my groceries back to the house, he asked if I was up for hanging out for a bit, so, just out of curiosity, I said sure. I asked what he wanted to do and he said well, how bout we go back to my place and we can have a few drinks, which we did.

So we were there at his place, we had a couple of small drinks (just some rum and juice and only a couple of small drinks) and we watched TV and smoked an eVape cig (we’ve both recently given up smoking). As we were watching TV he kept scooting closer to me on the couch and then he asked me if I would scratch his back for him. I did and when I was done leaned over and gave me a hug.

I thought it was just a hug and I went to pull back after a reasonable amount of time, but when I attempted to end the hug he wrapped his arms tighter around me and held me closer. He then sniffed my hair, told me it smelled it good, told me my new earring looked nice, and sighed heavily. He then pulled me down onto the couch laying down with him, and we lay there and cuddled for a bit while watching Wheel of Fortune. While we were watching the TV he told me he’d missed me, and I admitted that I’d missed the knowledge of having him around even just as friends.

We then went out driving for a bit and stopped to see one of his friends and then he brought me home. On the drive home, he asked me if I was free later next week to hang out again, and I told him I’d let him know. Once we got back to my place, he came in and hung out with me and my room mates and then offered to fix their car for them and then got ready to leave. Before he left, he pulled me into a hug and told me to get in contact with him later to let me know if I wanted to come over again and left.

After he left I gave him enough time to get home and messaged him on Facebook and simply told him I had a good time and I enjoyed hanging out and just seeing him again and that I would look forward to hanging out again next week if our schedules meshed well.

I won’t lie, it was great seeing him again and the old feelings are still there, for my part at least. I’m not sure how to proceed, other than to take things very slowly from here.

Advice from anyone so that I don’t do things wrong proceeding forward?

Good signs but play harder to get. Dont tell him eveeything you think right now. Make him work for it. Let him contact you. Dont let him think he can just have you whenever he wants or he will end up putting you on the backburner again. He has some trust to earn. Be strong and fight the urge to message him. Let him wonder what you are doing

Did he break up with you? If he did…I agree with Dubby let him do the pursuing!

@Dubbyb, I feel like I didn’t make myself too available. I made sure to tell him that while I’ve missed him as well, that mostly I’ve missed knowing he was around. I know it sounds crazy, but even after the break up (at least while I was still living there anyways) he was my one constant in my life for almost 3 years, and I’d be lying if I said that not having him always around feels like a huge void is left in my heart that nobody else can fill, even just as friends. Basically, beyond letting him know my free days from work this week, I’m leaving the ball in his court as far as him wanting to hang out (which he expressed wanting to again later this coming week).

@makeupjunkie, yes he did break up with me. At the time, he claimed that he wasn’t sure that he loved me any more and that he wasn’t sure if he was ready for a relationship at all and that’s been the only answer he’s stuck by since then. There have been a few times before I moved out where he said he might want to fix things, but when I would make the attempt to sit down and talk to him, he’d avoid the conversation or tell me he didn’t know or just give very vague answers.

Personally, I will say this, if I said that I didn’t enjoy any of what happened last night, I’d be lying like a motherfucker; but the truth is, I did enjoy the feeling of having him wrap his arms around me and holding me close, compliment me, and tell me that he’d missed me. While I’m not getting my hopes up for anything right now, the honest truth is this: even if he said he wanted to fix things right now, I’d probably say right now isn’t the right time. For there to be a chance for us to fix things, I want he and I to rebuild the friendship that we had when I first met him online and in person. On top of that, he needs to prove to me that even just as a friend I can trust him again. One of the things that ever attracted me to him in the first place, was the fact that I always felt like I could tell him anything, and to be honest, he knows things about me that I’ve never felt comfortable telling anybody and probably will never tell anybody ever again.

Any other helpful advice from anybody?