This question gets asked from a very specific place: something changed, you cannot say exactly what, and the not-knowing is worse than any answer would be. The temptation is to resolve it tonight, by asking, by checking, by moving closer. Before doing any of that, it is worth knowing which of three things is happening, because two of them get worse when you move closer.
What is usually going on
Their life got loud. Work, family, a friend in trouble, a health thing they have not mentioned. The attention that used to come to you is going somewhere it is needed, temporarily, and it will come back. This is the most common case and the one anxious people can least believe.
They are withdrawing because it got close. Everything was going well — and that is exactly when some people pull back. Avoidant attachment does this: closeness starts to feel like pressure, the person needs room, and they take it without explaining because explaining is more closeness. It looks like losing interest. It is usually the opposite: they got in deeper than they are comfortable with.
Your alarm is reading noise as signal. Nothing has actually changed — the reply times, the plans, the tone are all within their normal range — but your nervous system flagged something and is now finding evidence for it. This one is entirely yours, and it is worth knowing, because the pursuit it produces is the thing most likely to turn a false alarm into a real withdrawal.
They are actually leaving. Sometimes it is the thing you fear. The tell is that it is a pattern across weeks, not a mood across days, and that when you ask directly you get a non-answer rather than an explanation.
What to do tonight
- Look at the evidence, not the feeling. Write down what specifically changed and when. If the list is short and recent, wait a week before doing anything.
- Do not pursue. The extra message, the are we okay, the plan proposed to close the gap — all of it reads as pressure to a person who needs room, and pressure is the one thing that turns a temporary distance into a real one.
- Ask once, directly, in daylight: "You've seemed further away this week — is something going on?" Then accept the answer. A person who is busy will tell you. A person who needs space will feel respected. A person who is leaving will not answer, and that is your answer.
What it depends on
The same quiet week lands completely differently on two people. One shrugs. One rereads the thread. That difference is attachment style, and it decides whether you wait or pursue — which decides what happens next. If the not-knowing is the unbearable part, the thing to understand first is not them. It is that.