You are negotiating with a version of him

What this means

There are two men in what you described, and only one of them answers his phone. There is the one you are planning around: him from the first few months, or the one he has been describing lately, the version who is nearly here. And there is the one whose actual behavior you just answered twelve questions about — slower, vaguer, warmer when you step back and quieter when you come close. Most of the case for going back rests on the first one. Almost all of your evidence is about the second.

That gap is not stupidity and it is not weakness. It is what hope does when you have real memories to draw on. You did not invent the good version of him. You met him, which is exactly what makes this so hard: you are not choosing between him and nothing, you are choosing between two versions of the same person, and one of them cannot be disproved because he only exists in the future.

Why this happens

Warmth that arrives unpredictably grips harder than warmth that arrives reliably. When good stretches come and go without a pattern you can read, the mind keeps working the problem instead of settling, and the good weeks feel like evidence while the flat ones feel like weather. Add the years already spent, and leaving starts to feel less like a decision and more like writing off everything you put in. That is not a character flaw. It is a fairly universal piece of wiring, and knowing it is there is most of what you can do about it.

What this is not

This is not a claim that he is stringing you along, and it is not a diagnosis of anyone. From here you cannot know whether he is calculating or just inconsistent, and it matters less than it feels like it should, because your week looks the same either way. This is also not a ruling. Nothing here tells you to leave, and nothing here tells you to stay.

What to do next

Separate the two men on paper. Two columns: what he has actually done in the last sixty days, and what you are expecting from the next six months. Do not editorialize either column. Most people find the left one much shorter than they assumed and much more informative.

Then say the future part out loud, with a date in it. Something like: "I keep making plans around a version of you I have not really seen since the spring. What would have to be different by January for me to see him again?" His answer matters less than whether he can give one at all.

Talk to one person who knew you both then. Not to be told what to do, but because the second version of him lives mostly in your head, and a person with an outside view will describe what they actually saw. And if you want to think it through out loud at two in the morning without anyone pushing you toward an answer, the AI relationship coach will sit with the question at that hour.

One more thing worth doing this week: write down the date you started waiting for the change. Seeing the actual number of months tends to do more than any argument anyone can make to you.