Is he busy or not interested?

Sad and confused Asks:

Hi Alan,

I am quite confused about a guy. We had know each other for three months but only went out twice due to his busy schedule(he’s a law student taking bar exam).

We used to text everyday or nearly everyday until just one month before his bar exam whereby he told me honestly he didn’t want a relationship now but we could still text and hang out together. I didn’t really gave him a clear answer.

After that we met up the second time and it felt alright. But after that he didn’t contact me and I didn’t initiate too. It’s been a month 🙁

I have been thinking of him everyday since and I don’t know is it because he want to focus on his studies now (bar exam in one month) or he didn’t know if I will wait for him or because he is no longer interested.

What should I do? Should I initiate or give up? 🙁

Sad and confused:

To me it sounds like simply a situation of he needs something in his life and for whatever reason you aren’t giving him this. Worst case scenario is that you are taking from him to the point he is getting drained and needs to back off. Example, it could easily be he needs to focus his energy on the bar exam as he needs that for his future and for whatever reason your presence in his life with a more serious role is causing him negativity.

Think of it like a fictional way of determining “stress” level as if it was like some game. 100 point of stress level is bad and there are various ways to drop it. Right now, let’s say his stress is at 80. Every time he finishes his work, he remains at that 80. One day he goes out with his buddies and as a result the stress level drops by 10 points to 70. So that means going out with his buddies are a good thing right? But because he did this he is behind on his work. Now, he has to work even harder to finish the work and that extra effort means adding 15 points of stress. So in the end, his stress level is at 85.

If you think about it, it’s not worth it in that sense to not finish the work first. The only exception is if being with his buddies drops his stress level by say 15 points instead to even things out. Therefore, it’s a trade-off he can balance. How could being with his buddies be better? If every time he hung out with them he learned new ways to better manage his time better then that would be good. If his buddies were actually helping him with his studies in some ways then it is essentially giving him the best of both worlds.

Now really think of that in context to your question about whether or not he is interested. If you are 100% positive that the main reason the communication dropped is exactly when he started the bar exam then I would say there is a huge chance you are like that scenario above. You aren’t doing anything wrong per se, but for whatever reason being with you is make something else in his life harder where it’s not a good trade-off.

There are so many ways to do this if you are interested in pursuing him more. Example, taking an active interest in his studies and finding ways to make it easier for him. Or, find out things that he seriously enjoys at a very high level to the point where that enjoyment will for sure make his life so much happier in the end. You know him personally whereas I don’t so that would be on your end to research when it comes to things such as likes and dislikes.

If you can’t think of or don’t have the energy to do that then all you can really do is wait it out and see what happens after he finishes his exam.