Friendship dynamics

I had a friend who was a very good study buddy of mine. We dated briefly, it didn't work, and we returned to being friends. We were good study buddies and then the dynamics got weird. I found myself being uncomfortable in our conversations and get togethers, but I wouldn't be able to pinpoint why. I just knew that I was feeling uncomfortable about it. After a while, I realized that I was feeling bullied. Part of the problem is that it is lot of small interactions. If I think enough, I can pinpoint it, but when you talk about it, it often seems like trivial encounters.

For example, I was trying to figure out how I would work up an ALTE (acute life threatening event) in an infant. With an ALTE, an infant may while feeding or at some other time, suddenly turn blue, have trouble breathing, go limp, but with stimulation, promptly revives. In our conversation, he starts talking about what follow up he would do. I try to redirect to what we would do as our initial evaluation. But he keep talking about what we'd do as follow up. I get frustrated and say, can we talk about follow up after we've talked about the initial workup? He follows up with "I think you are just being too strict in your definition of follow up," rather than just saying "actually by follow up, I mean follow up to the ALTE not follow up after the initial visit."

It's those small types of interactions that make you feel silly if you pursue them. It's the overly intense reaction and adding in the attack, rather than just assuming that I wasn't following him, he assumes that I am being purposefully dense. It sounds so silly now as I try to write about it. But I do know that I am not comfortable around him now and I need to remember that and not make plans to get together and study. It's hard to accept that things are different.