Hey, some people just don't reply regularly to messages. I have one online friend like that (we know someone irl in common and wrote to each other for more than five years). She has times in her life when she withdraws from all her friends. She is aware of that and during the past year has done this less, but before it was a big coping mechanism. She has a lot of superficial people interaction in her life and sometimes that is too much and she just wants to concentrate on herself.

Perhaps it's different because we are both women. It was always clear that we had a connection, but I was often in the position that you are where I wondered if I'd been too much or said something wrong.

I would send him a one-liner, something like "you haven't been around and I missed talking to your" but don't rely on an answer and don't make too much of it if you don't get one. You might find that he starts talking to you again in the future just like he stopped. People all have their idiosynchratic ways of protecting themselves which are not about us personally.

It takes time and patience, and some heartache!!! I'm conscious of having done that to someone in my life just once, recently, because I got very physically sick, was exhausted and I couldn't at the time negotiate the differences in our personality as I would normally have done - so now I've been on both sides.

I wouldn't assume that the problem is about religion as such. In my experience religion does give people a different outlook on life, but then so does social class or political opinion, or having babies, or a mental/ physical illness, etc. Religion can be a very fundamental way of organising how people think about their life. But good personal relationships build bridges. Our opinions are only one part of who we are ??

Please don't feel that you shouldn't bring up something that you feel strongly about, positive or negative.

You could say, "I'm concerned that I was perhaps a little intense in my last message to you".

Sounds like I'm too involved in this discussion. I have one acquaintance who I've known for several years who is very much part of a religious community and I am drawn to his sense of there being "more to life" without being actually drawn to his religion. We've had some amicable "fights" where we've both said challenging things to the other person: I find those exchanges interesting.

Best wishes

Saidso