I'll preface this post with some background:

I was in boarding school at young age until I graduated high school at 17. At 16, I went out with a girl (at the time 18) for a full year. Long story short, it was a great year and I have nothing but fond memories of the relationship. The next year, she moved to Germany (from the US) for college and we decided long distance was feasible. It was, for a while, but halfway through my senior year, she cheated and never told me about it. I had that classic gut feeling that something had happened, but I shrugged it off and ignored it until the following summer. When I found out, I dumped her unsympathetically over text.

Fast forward to this past summer. I'm now 20 and she's 22. Unintentionally, we ended up working a job at the boarding school from which we had both attended, the one we went to together. Ever since we had broken up, I've picked up new hobbies, started reading daily, thinking positively, quit substances, and started lifting. Romantically, I'd had a few plates, and been in one minor relationship, but had no intentions for getting into that "relationship mentality" any time soon. But being with my ex for a month might have messed things up...it turns out she's chosen a new career path, started taking care of herself, and being an overall more productive person in the time we've been apart. I'd be lying if I said her seemingly improved self wasn't attractive. Truth is, we'd both gotten more attractive and ended up sleeping together throughout the summer and although no "I love you"s were ever said, feelings definitely re-appeared on both sides.

So I thought I'd just go with the flow because even if this fails again it'll be a great learning experience. She's back in Europe for a couple months and we've been talking on the phone since early August, having genuinely stimulating conversations. BUT, the other day, we called and I noticed her mood was off. I started getting that gut feeling that something major was and still is wrong.

Not only might I have just fallen into a trap of oneitis, but I'm now letting myself get bothered enough to care if a) she's seeing other men, b) just trying to keep a LTR again, or C) both.

I'm not really interested in just cutting her off at the drop of a hat, but maybe that's because I've already cut off all other female options and maybe this is just a big enough dopamine kick to keep me hanging on.

Let me know what y'all think the best approach here is.