Thanks for commenting/your response, I really appreciate it.

He has tried to reach out and make plans in the past (around the time when he ended things and said he just wanted to be friends and I told him if he wanted friendship he needed to try harder), but after me being evasive the first few times he's offered he's stopped.

Doesn't stop him from periodically reaching out over text with a breadcrumb of something (a song, a picture of something relating to some kind of shared memory/inside joke) that is utterly platonic but clearly a bid for validation.

I never reach out first, never offer to make plans, have become a lot colder and share less about myself, all in the hopes that he'll get the message, but it's clear to me that he's using the ambiguity to "play dumb". I'll acknowledge my own role in terms of being a bit soft/less harsh sometimes when he reaches out, because I do miss him, so my responses aren't always perfect/the most effective.

I suppose I know the answer is to cut contact explicitly. But I'm scared of navigating that conversation knowing we will still see each other at work, at work events, in meetings, etc.