Help needed about letting someone back in - sort of urgent

A college friend of mine recently contacted me to check if I still had the same e-mail. We were in contact last over 10 years ago. He had just gotten divorced and we were both in a bad place. I was struggling with an overly stressful work situation. We sort of fell out of contact. I wasn't mad. I needed space at that time. I think he was a little mad.

I've contacted people from my past but we had parted ways because of school or work or location changes. I don't know if this contact is because he had seen my whereabouts through media accounts and I was "close enough." His tone was really formal and all business. It sounded like he had a prepared message he'd be following up with. I'm a little bit uncomfortable with what he might be up to or want. Maybe I'm a little paranoid and looking at the worst in people. If you've experienced something like this, let me know your thoughts and how you handled it.

 

Thank you for this input. It's always nice to let people back in, even if it's for a short time - a couple of years - where the friendship fades because people change, have their own lives, live far apart, etc. At least there was a pleasant reconnection.

These outcomes seem way more good than not so good. I appreciate your responding and sharing what happened and can happen.

I slept on this last night. Literally. The e-mails, coming from different places, didn't seem right. To the first e-mail, in which I confirmed it was in use, I also asked how he was doing. Nothing (in the second and weirder e-mail). I sense that something is simmering more than a genuine desire to reconnect. We live very far away from each other, but that wouldn't matter at all. We've all scattered. He was sort of unraveled toward the end for his own personal reasons, I drifted because it was too much for me, and I think he took that as a judgement of him and his behavior. It was not. It was to preserve the peace I seek to surround myself with as much as possible.

If he wants to reach out again, and do it more genuinely, I will open the door.

 

Thank you for this and adding more insight. I would definitely communicate what went sideways if there was a healthy way to communicate and he would listen. By genuine, I'm using the term the more old fashioned way. I'm intending it mean that he really wants to communicate and engage in a healthy way, the way friends are supposed to and which we historically did. Sexuality hasn't come up. The divorce was hard on him and he may have been acting out. I feel like I happened to be a bystander and stuff landed on me. I don't mind lending an ear and I did. I do mind having to soak in someone's misdirected anger. For now, this is tabled. I have to get a good vibe.

 

Well, some 2 to 3 months later, that college friend reached out after many years but never got back to me through the original e-mail account he used to send the first message .... and an e-mail address I've known of for at least 20 years. I did not respond to the other e-mail message from another e-mail account with the unusual and slightly altered sender's name.

It's sort of sad. I also wonder what these maneuvers were all about. But I won't lose any sleep over it.