So, here's the sitch, GYO:

I was talking to a local 19 year old who put an ad out on here. The initial conversation seemed to be going fine, but then he stopped responding, and either by coincidence or design, it was right after I had revealed something about myself (being out of shape) that is a potential negative for a romantic connection.

After 45 minutes without a response, I poked to see if he'd lost interest, but there was no response. I still allowed for the possibility that perhaps he just fell asleep, but two days later, I saw him active on other Reddit forums again, still without responding. So I felt pretty confident that he was no longer interested and sent a final message to say "thanks for the ghosting, makes it really clear I'm not losing anything too much since you didn't have the courtesy to just tell me you weren't interested".

Figured that'd be the end of the story, but three days after that, he did send a response, defensively pointing out that he was busy with other life stuff and implying that my dismissal was a failing on my part rather than his.

Eh, it is what it is, obviously it doesn't matter what anyone's intentions were at this point because I don't think there's any coming back from that negative impression. But it does lead me to wonder:

Is it normal among the younger crowd to just drop off without saying good night? Am I applying a cultural expectation that doesn't apply to their generation? Or is my instinct correct and he's just trying to save face by gaslighting me here?

What does GYO think?