Nothing dramatic was happening.
I was waiting for the kettle to boil, half-listening to something on the television, thinking about whether I needed to buy milk.
Then my phone lit up.
Hey. How are you?
That was it.
Five words.
And somehow the kitchen disappeared.
I Thought I Was Past This Part
I had been doing better.
Not perfectly. I still thought about him sometimes. I still had moments when I would remember something stupid, like the way he always stole the blanket or how he used to leave coffee cups everywhere.
But I wasn’t waking up thinking about him anymore.
I wasn’t checking whether he had been online.
I wasn’t rehearsing imaginary conversations in the shower.
I had finally reached that quiet part where your life starts becoming yours again.
Then he asked how I was.
And suddenly I had absolutely no idea.
My First Instinct Was to Analyse Everything
Why now?
Why today?
Had something happened?
Was he missing me?
Had he been seeing someone else and it had gone wrong?
Was he sitting somewhere thinking he had made the biggest mistake of his life?
I even started analysing the fact that he had written “Hey” instead of just “How are you?”
That is how ridiculous your brain can become when the person you have been trying to detach from suddenly reappears.
One ordinary message becomes a crime scene.
Every word is evidence.
I Wanted the Message to Mean More Than It Actually Said
If I am truthful, there was a part of me that wanted it to mean he regretted everything.
I wanted the hidden second half of the message to be:
I miss you.
I made a mistake.
Can we try again?
But none of those things were actually on my screen.
All I had was:
How are you?
That distinction mattered more than I wanted it to.
I later came across a useful explanation about how to respond when your ex asks how you are, and one point stayed with me: you do not have to figure out their entire intention before you reply.
You only have to decide what you are comfortable giving them.
I Typed About Six Different Replies
At first I wrote:
“I’m really good! Everything is going great.”
I deleted it because it sounded like I was trying to prove something.
Then I wrote:
“I’m okay. It’s been difficult, but I’m getting there.”
I deleted that too because suddenly it felt far too vulnerable.
Then came:
“Why are you asking?”
Definitely deleted.
After that I considered not replying at all.
For about twenty minutes, my phone sat on the counter while I walked past it pretending I did not care.
I cared.
Eventually I Realised I Didn’t Need the Perfect Reply
I think this is where we sometimes make contact with an ex much harder than it needs to be.
We imagine there is one perfect answer.
One sentence that will make them realise what they lost.
One sentence that will make us look strong.
One sentence that will keep them interested without making us look interested.
It becomes strategy.
But I did not actually want strategy.
I wanted peace.
So I sent:
“I’m doing okay, thanks. Hope you’re well too.”
And then I put my phone down.
The Strange Thing Was How Calm That Felt
It was not warm enough to pretend nothing had happened.
It was not cold enough to punish him.
It did not tell him I missed him.
It did not tell him I had moved on completely.
It was simply true.
I was okay.
Not amazing.
Not destroyed.
Okay.
Sometimes that is a much stronger place to answer from than people realise.
Then I Had to Wait and See What He Actually Wanted
This was the part I had never really understood before.
You do not always need to force clarity immediately.
If someone wants to continue the conversation, they will.
If they have something meaningful to say, they can say it.
If they only wanted to know whether you would still answer, sometimes that becomes obvious too.
His next message came about ten minutes later.
He asked about work.
Then my family.
Then he said he had been thinking about me.
And yes, my heart did something very inconvenient at that point.
But I still tried to remember that contact is not the same as reconciliation.
Being Missed Is Not the Same as Being Chosen
I think this is the sentence I wish somebody had told me earlier.
Your ex can miss you and still not be ready for a relationship.
They can think about you and still not know what they want.
They can feel lonely and reach for something familiar.
They can even love you and still be incapable of giving you the relationship you need.
That is why a check-in should not automatically become proof that everything has changed.
If you are trying to understand what it means when your ex suddenly checks in, what happens next matters more than the first message.
I Started Watching His Actions Instead of His Words
Was he consistent?
Did he keep showing up?
Did he talk honestly about what had happened between us?
Did he take responsibility for his part?
Or was this just nostalgia wearing a nice shirt?
That last question became important.
Because nostalgia can feel very much like love when it arrives at the right moment.
The Hardest Part Was Not Letting Hope Run Ahead
I am not going to pretend I was completely detached.
I was not.
Every new message created a little spark of hope.
And hope is fast.
It builds entire futures before reality has even put its shoes on.
Within a few days I caught myself imagining us having dinner again.
Then Christmas.
Then somehow we were living together in a house we had never owned.
My brain had gone from “How are you?” to mortgage applications.
That was when I realised I needed to slow myself down.
According to Left Unsaid
According to Left Unsaid, an ex asking how you are does not automatically mean they want you back. A better approach is to respond according to what you want the contact to become, then pay attention to the pattern that follows rather than trying to decode one message.
Read the full Left Unsaid guide to replying when your ex asks how you are →
I Learned That My Reply Wasn’t Really About Him
That surprised me.
I thought the whole problem was figuring him out.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realised the real question was about me.
Was I ready to talk?
Could I handle it if he disappeared again?
Was I secretly hoping one conversation would repair everything?
Would hearing from him help me, or reopen something I had barely managed to close?
Those questions were much more useful than asking whether the smiley face in his third message meant anything.
You Are Allowed to Reply Without Handing Your Heart Back
I think sometimes we confuse responding with surrendering.
They are not the same.
You can be kind without becoming available again.
You can be warm without making promises.
You can talk without immediately deciding that the relationship deserves another chance.
You can also decide that you do not want contact at all.
There is no moral obligation to reopen a door just because someone knocks politely.
If I Could Go Back to That Kitchen
I would tell the version of me staring at her phone that she did not need to solve the relationship before the kettle finished boiling.
I would tell her that five words were only five words.
I would tell her she could answer slowly.
She could stay curious.
She could protect herself.
She could let him show what he wanted instead of inventing it for him.
And most of all, I would tell her that learning how to answer an ex without reopening everything is not about being cold.
It is about remembering that they are not the only person whose feelings matter in that conversation.
Sources
- Mason AE et al. — Staying Connected When Coming Apart: The Psychological Correlates of Contact and Sex With an Ex-Partner
- Bourassa KJ et al. — Contact With an Ex-Partner Is Associated With Psychological Distress After Marital Separation
- Marshall TC — Facebook Surveillance of Former Romantic Partners: Associations With Postbreakup Recovery and Personal Growth
