You may well have had free will to meet others inbetween and try to carry on your life but there was no avoiding the set outcome that you 2 were unfinished business and had to meet again.
In answer to your question I think we have all been guilty of listening to readers, don't reach out to him because you'll scare him off or the opposite - do reach out and some people send text after text which freaks the guy out even more. Like Girly1998 said, sometimes it's also that fear of well how will he respond, will he tell friends and family I contacted and laugh about me. I think it's very healthy to want an ex back but still live your life and have fun inbetween because nobody knows what the future holds and if you both will reconcile and work out. So you can live your life and if he comes back in cool, if he doesn't there really is more to life and you'll look back in time and laugh at why you were so hurt over him.