i'm stuck on this guy. need some push to move on.

It's impossible to tell, so don't beat yourself up over it.

You were not communicating. Neither was he. You were just using damned smoke signals. Everything looms large but the truth is, it's all just so much smoke. There's no substance there.

Next time you like someone, ask them out. It's almost 2023. You can do that, and I swear the world will not end if he says no.

I can guarantee you that wishing and hoping and making signals or not or trying to hide your signals or whatever the **** was going on is nowhere near as effective as actually saying to someone, "You wanna grab a coffee?"

So, you've got two choices here. You can either just go for broke and ask him out anyway, no matter what you think is going on, just to see if anything can happen. Or you can decide to get over this and move onto someone better, who you will communicate with better.

I would personally do both - ask him out and use getting over him as a fallback position. But that's me and I've got no skin in this game.

BTW, how do you get over someone?

You do things. You make art. You contact your friends and spend time with them. You go to a class or you volunteer and spend time helping those who are less fortunate than you are. You go out in nature or you get some exercise or you just have yourself a good cry and then put a pin in the whole thing and declare it done.

It's not magic. It's just getting out of your crush bubble and getting some perspective.