What are the signs my ex will come back?
Short answer: Signs an ex may come back include big emotional statements at the breakup, moving on unusually fast, cryptic sad posts, blocking and unblocking you, and asking mutual friends about you. None of these guarantee anything on their own. They're curiosity signals, not commitments, and reacting to them too hard is the actual mistake.
People in no-contact tend to hunt for a single definitive sign their ex is coming back. Benny Lichtenwalner’s list runs the other way: no single behavior means much, but a cluster of small ones points somewhere real.
Big emotional statements at the breakup, including a hard “don’t contact me,” read as investment rather than indifference. Two behaviors that look opposite, an ex who seems to move on instantly and an ex posting cryptic sad content, both often mean the same thing: unprocessed feelings that surface one way or another. Blocking and unblocking suggests curiosity when an ex has no other way to check on someone’s life without you knowing. Asking mutual friends about you is a smaller version of the same instinct.
One thing Benny flags as commonly overread: an ex holding onto your stuff. It’s tempting to treat it as a hidden excuse to reconnect, but often it’s just avoidance, not strategy. The throughline across every sign here is the same: curiosity isn’t commitment, and the real work is knowing how to handle the conversation if and when it comes, not just spotting that it might.
Full transcript
Here's a set of behaviors an ex often shows before they come back. The first is a big emotional statement at the breakup itself: blocking you, saying never speak to me again, anything charged. That intensity is the opposite of indifference. Breakups involve some amount of demonizing each other to make the separation easier to push through, but the reactivity itself is a sign they're still invested, even when what they're saying isn't kind. Next, two contradictory signs that both point the same direction. One is an ex who looks like they're having the time of their life on social media right after the breakup. That can look like moving on, but people who distract themselves instead of processing their emotions tend to have those feelings resurface later. The other is the opposite: cryptic sad posts, small jabs aimed indirectly at you. Both are signs they're still thinking about it. Blocking and unblocking is another one. If they don't have another way to check on you, unblocking briefly to look at your profile and then blocking again is a sign of curiosity, even without contact. Asking mutual friends about you is a smaller version of the same thing: curiosity, not commitment, and not something to get excited about on its own. It's just a hint they're moving toward you rather than away. One thing that isn't a reliable sign: holding onto your stuff. It's easy to read that as an excuse to reconnect, but sometimes an ex is just avoiding the discomfort of dealing with it and isn't thinking about it strategically at all. Last, incoming messages of any kind, even something as minor as asking for a streaming password, can be a low-stakes way of testing whether you'll pick the conversation back up. None of these signs mean anything by themselves if you don't know how to handle the conversation that follows: keeping the mood light, avoiding anything that drags it down, and recognizing the moment to move things forward without overdoing it.
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