Definition: Given a real-life anecdote of a complex ethical situation, generate a suitable title that describes the main event/root cause of the situation. Imagine that the given text is a social media post, and you have to write the title of the post, so the users can decide to read the main text or not.
Input: When I was about 15, I got into an online relationship with someone (yes I was dumb) my age through a mutual skype group. We had the same sense of humor and interests and he seemed super cool.

Eventually, I found out I had feelings for a friend IRL and he was entering his freshman year of highschool. I thought it would be healthier for us both to seek relationships in real life, and I also kind of felt suffocated in a relationship where I didn’t have a voice, so I broke it off with him. I told him that he should look for someone IRL and this blew up in my face resulting in him telling me that “you can’t break up with me because that’s not a good enough reason to”. I dated him for about a week after that before actually putting my foot down because I’m kind of a doormat. 

We remained friends for a few months but he was constantly telling me how he was depressed and lonely, and that he didn’t know how to go on without me. I know that stuff is messed up but he did have mental health issues so I have a hard time blaming him or considering it deliberate. Eventually I was worn down enough that I got back together with him even though I really didn’t want to because I was scared of what he would do to himself if I didn’t.

Over the following months of us “dating” I tried to interact with him, but I often became exhausted in a relationship I didn’t want. I also had very serious personal issues happening IRL, that he ignored in favor of chewing me out for avoiding him. I would cut contact with him without warning for over a week sometimes just so I could get myself together and in a mental state where I could handle interacting with him. 

Cutting contact got him so upset that eventually he didn’t really have a choice other than breaking up with me. He later went on to claim this was abuse because he had bpd and I was his “favorite person” and ghosting him was simulating abandonment. For a while I felt really awful and genuinely saw my actions as abusive until I told my friends about it and they said it was the other way around. 

It’s been a long time since then but I still feel very conflicted on my own actions, and whether there’s even a “wrong person vs right person” in the given scenario. Am I the asshole? 

ghosting someone until he broke up with me