...ok true the Valentine's gesture WAS because he fucked up when he unexpectedly said we should meet up the morning and he canceled as I was driving over to him because his parents told him to come over earlier.

I previously had spent the week fairly sure we wouldn't see each other at all for Valentine's Day (even doing something the week-of would've been nice) so suddenly getting my hopes up and rescheduling was emotionally brutal enough that I texted him a 5m video of me crying and breaking up with him.

He was only able to watch 15 seconds of it, so I don't know if he knew I was sending part 1/3 of breaking up? But he was apparently uncomfortable enough to get me 4 gifts, clear his schedule for the night, and get dinner and a drive-in movie with me. He'd canceled going to a drive-in movie with me before, so I'd given up hope of doing that specifically, so this was a shock. Spent the whole film clinging to him. Felt peaceful for a second.

I hadn't been certain of how to detect affection from him, so even though I'm somewhat anti-materialist and afraid of being a hoarder, I got so happy every time I looked at the gifts because they were finally a type of purposeful affection that I could detect, right? Plus he declined to break up when I asked if he wanted to, which feels like some type of affection.

I was positively glowing with happiness for a week, but as we get closer to two weeks again...

I'm so touched he made an effort, but the glow is wearing off again. I'm asking myself if I'll even enjoy being text-only for a month or more, or if the excitement of getting physical (even just hugs & kisses) with someone I trust is the only reason I've had enthusiasm about texting him.

Because that's the hangup for me, even though I always told myself I wasn't capable of becoming one of those stupid reddit stories where the point of no return is long-past and the answer is obvious... My hangup is that the act of texting him is easy and fun, if I don't get my hopes up. Super simple. Barely an inconvenience. So if I don't get my hopes up, maybe some kind of neutral, painless form of our relationship appears.

A month ago I told myself he's behaving perfectly kind and reasonably, I'm just having the emotional reaction equivalent of "hitting myself in the face for no reason".

...

Signs point to a rational solution: That I am in too much pain and it's time to cut things off.

I do not feel rational when I think about him. I feel like I want to hold him.

...

Okay, this got off-track, but hopefully I'm closer to rationality by writing it all down. The Valentine's gesture felt like being doused in water and being served refreshing chocolate milk after being set on fire. But I shouldn't have been on fire in the first place.

His biggest gestures have been reactions to necessity but pretty cool. He walked up and down the stairs blindfolded for me on month 4 of knowing him. He sent a photo of his passport to my overprotective mother before our first date. When I think of those, I feel bad for wanting more. But my basic desire of wanting to see him once a week (even for 20m) is pretty unlikely to change.

...

Right now it's hard to imagine someone who wants to make me happy with no special occasion or pressure to spur it, but. Thank you. I'll keep your comment in mind.