I (43F) dated someone very briefly 2 years ago. It lasted less than a month. He told me upfront that he was also meeting other people. He eventually picked someone else over me, and I wasn't too hung up on him anyway, so I wished him luck. We had just started working together on a startup, and he said he didn't want to lose me as a friend, and he'd love to continue working together.

I saw no reason not to, so I continued. He kept saying we needed to finalize the paperwork so I'd earn something out of it, but it never actually got done. I'm a bit of a people pleaser and found it difficult to draw my boundaries.

A few months into the started, we still had no paperwork, but he said sprouted feelings for me. He saod things weren't working out between him and his gf. We ended up having sex, and I got reinvested.

Then suddenly, one day, his gf flew into town, they were supposed to break up. I simply texted asking if everything went ok. He called me the next day and pretty much shouted at me, telling me I was too clingy and that he had manipulated me throughout.

I cut off all contact and stopped working on the project.

Now, I realized a couple of days ago when cleaning out my messages that he had texted me about a mont ago:

"Hi. Do you still exist?"

I have to admit it was idiotic, but I responded. "Hey, just saw this. Had turned off my message notifications. Yes, of course I exist. Why wouldn't I?"

Part of me was dying to tell him I'm in a happy relationship, part of me wanted to lash out. Part of me perhaps wanted the drama.

Then he responded with: " No worries. How've you been? At the outset, I apologise for completely cutting off

Life's been a traumatic roller coaster since a while. Just getting back to sanity & reconnecting."

I don't want to get sucked into his chaos, but the struggling people pleaser in me is feeling uneasy about initiating the conversation and then disappearing.

So reddit, WIBTA if I didn't respond to this message at all?