How do I get my ex talking stage back?

So we’ll call this guy A. So I’ve lowk been plotting on A since last year but I haven’t really done any action. But about a month ago, I was like “why not?” And decided to follow him. Of course, he didn’t follow me back

Okay whatever, it wasn’t such a big deal. I got my friend (we’ll call him D) to help me with this since he doesn’t really mind to do this stuff. So I got D to talk to A and eventually I got a follow back.

Now with this opportunity I decided to text A. Just the basic “hi, how are you?” stuff. And it continued to be just that. For like 5 days. The conversations weren’t flowing and he was just being super dry. And it’s not like he didn’t want me, he literally called me like pretty.

So I asked D to ask him what the deal was. And A basically said since I want him I should put in more effort. But it’s like I literally have been putting effort. So I decided to end the 5 day talking stage there.

Fast forward a month to now, I still really like him and I wanna talk to him again. LIKE REALLYYYY. And I just recently found out that he’s been on and off with his ex so I don’t know what to do.