I need advice from a cancer man because I'm at a crossroad

I've heard about cancers "going into their shell" at times. But I've also heard about cancers "needing to be needed"
I need to know what approach is best when a cancer man is in his shell not talking to someone - I've heard the best thing is to not talk to him leave him alone and he'll come around when he is ready -on the other hand I've also heard the opposite and that when he's in his shell he wants to be contacted so as to reassure him that the person still cares and that he's not being ignored - I've been talking to this cancer guy online we exchanged pictures and said he thought I was cute and I said the same to him - New Years we talked for a bit then he quit texting - few days later I apologized and he asked if I was ok, that he was there for me and that he missed me - I told him I missed him too - but then he quit talking again - the last text I sent him was 6 days ago when I told him about a friend of mine that I found out had lied to me and hurt my feelings -he didn't read it until today - what I wanna know is where do I go from here? I don't know whether he needs time to himself or if he thinks I'm ignoring him and is hoping I'll write to him ?

no we haven't yet - we started planning for it but then that was the time he stopped texting

I just don't get what made him go from hot to cold within minutes -I think I'm just feeling mixed signals because my last 2 boyfriends were cancers so I have experienced the silence from them - the most recent ex quit talking to me and then when he talked to me again he said he missed me and asked why I was ignoring him - I told him that I tried talking to him and he was the one ignoring me - he
didnt say much after that so that's why Im all confused about this - I guess I'm wondering if it's always gonna be a 50/50 guess as to what's going through a cancer dudes mind when he's in his shell -whether he wants someone to reach out to him or leave him alone ?

very shy afraid of rejection vs not wanting to talk that's how I should've worded it

If you were supposed to meet and that's when he stopped talking, it's because he either has no intention of meeting you or he's still too shy to.

Maybe I'm being a stickler for details but if he read your message and didn't reply in six days, I'd say he was shelled up. But he didn't bother to read your text for six days, I would say, forget it.

If this helps you at all, the Cancer guy I was talking to wanted to cut contact with me. I had written him a message and he left it in his inbox for five days before he even read it. I knew something was wrong just by that. Another five before he responded, and then it was to tell me he couldn't talk to me and wouldn't be responding anymore.

We had already met a few times.

wow I can't believe he actually came out and said it flat out that he didn't wanna talk to you anymore 😢 I'm sorry that happened - see and that's another thing -my last cancer ex ignores me than turns around and asked why I was ignoring him - over the 2 years we were off and on with each other he did it several times and just his overall demeanor he was always sulking complaining about one thing or another feeling sorry for himself so it didn't exactly surprise me that he'd manipulate the situation to try and put a guilt trip on me - the cancer guy I'm talking about now well I'm kinda tempted to post the text tread but I'm embarrassed cause looking back I was more assertive than him since I was worried and insecure and I feel like I probably did scare him off - but the thing is he started doing the silent treatment before I panicked and got more assertive - maybe I did scare him off but It's just frustrating that he sounded so excited about me and literally a few hours later is when I texted him and he ignored me later tells me he's here for me then ignores me again - when I wrote that last text that he didn't read till today - at first I thought he blocked me cause it didn't say "read" till today and I've heard that when someone blocks you on iPhone it says "delivered" and stays that way but he also could've turned off his read receipts so I wouldn't ask him about not writing back - there's always the possibility he could've played that game and I know he didn't block me on FB cause his page still shows up on my "people you might know " section - I wish I wasn't so hung up on him but it happened - I can accept just being friends but guess I just want some type or form of answer as to how he could just switch that fast