It turns out that, according to NBC News, the U.S. decision was made in part because the administration was afraid that North Korea would pull out of the summit first, and decided to cancel first: You can’t break up with me, I’m dumping you! At 8:20 a.m. Thursday, the State Department issued a statement celebrating progress. Less than 90 minutes later, Trump’s letter of cancelation went out.

“The decision occurred so abruptly that the administration was unable to give congressional leaders and key allies advance notice and the letter went out while more than two dozen foreign journalists, including several U.S. citizens, were inside North Korea where they had gone to witness a promised dismantling of a nuclear test site,” NBC reported.

There was an air of wounded paramour in a background call that the White House held Thursday evening, too. A senior administration official complained that the U.S. had sent a delegation to Singapore for a preliminary meeting, but that the North Koreans had stood them up without warning, just like that guy who didn’t show up for your second Tinder date. (He was lame anyway.)

After the letter, Kim eschewed his usual defiant tone in public statements, saying, “We would like to make known to the U.S. side once again that we have the intent to sit with the U.S. side to solve problem regardless of ways at any time.”

Apparently that was enough to assuage Trump, who tweeted Friday morning, “Very good news to receive the warm and productive statement from North Korea. We will soon see where it will lead, hopefully to long and enduring prosperity and peace. Only time (and talent) will tell!” Then, as he headed to Annapolis to speak at the commissioning ceremony for the Naval Academy, Trump told reporters that the U.S. was in touch with North Korea and the that the summit might still happen—perhaps even on June 12.

Is Trump serious about June 12 being on the table? No one knows, and that gets to the problem. While the U.S. audience puzzles over whether his latest statement is just Trump being Trump, or is the real thing, the North Koreans are doing the same. And as reporters who visit North Korea have found, they’re even more confused than Americans. Like the repeated invocations of Libya in the run-up to Thursday’s schism, and like the cancelation of the Iran deal before that, Trump’s abrupt cancelation and then his flip Friday are not moves that instill confidence in counterparts that the U.S. is a reliable and consistent negotiating partner whose word can be trusted.

Then again, the Trump administration is right to distrust the North Koreans, who have repeatedly pulled the same sort of shenanigans, agreeing to some interim step and then backing away from it—in this case, making vague statements about denuclearization, then muddying the waters. (The administration was warned.) By standing the U.S. up in Singapore, Pyongyang sent a message that it was not a counterpart to be trusted either.