I (23F) have a close friend (23M) who’s part of my small friend group. A few months into the friendship, he broke up with his very serious, long time girlfriend. He was devastated for 3-4 months after that. After he got a bit better, we started becoming tactile/flirty in a harmless way — lingering looks, teasing, picking me up for no reason, biting my finger as a joke once, cuddling up while all our other friends were someplace else, that kind of thing. I knew that he was really sad about the breakup so I never initiated physical contact, he started it all.
Anyway, one night a couple weeks ago (it's been almost a year since the breakup), we were all drinking and he and I ended up making out and cuddling. Like full cuddling – him pulling me in, holding me, dry humping a bit, both of us clearly into it. No sex, no nudity, just intense physical closeness but after that… he got super weird with me.
He avoided being alone with me, wouldn’t sit next to me on the couch, barely spoke to me, and acted super awkward, particularly when alone w me. At the same time, he’d still do small caring things like checking if I’d eaten or telling me not to sit on the floor, so it wasn’t full avoidance. It got bad enough that other people in the friend group noticed he was acting off with me.
I finally talked to him about it. He said things were normal, he’d just been working a lot and was tired. He also said, “If you want to talk about that night, I was really drunk.” I joked back that I was also drunk, and then I told him I didn’t regret it. He didn’t say that back.
I'm trying so hard for everything to go back to normal but it doesn't look good right now. I wouldn't mind kissing or cuddling again but more importantly, I just want my friend back. Why is he acting this way and does he regret what happened?