I had a quick look at your feedback and noticed that you have sold quite a few things, so you're lucky if this was your first unpaid item, I guess.

You struck an annoying numpty but I think if you are going to be selling a lot, it would probably pay to have a strategy in place to deal with people like this and to know your time limitations.

As others said, don't allow any buyer to string you along, although to be fair, this buyer didn't. No payment and no reply to your first message was a clear indication they weren't interested and at that point, you needed to open your claim for unpaid item.

In future,  if I were you, I'd just open a claim if there has been no payment in the required time frame. No need to contact the buyer at all.

Your main concern here is to get your fees back.

If you get onto ebay chat you may be able to make an unpaid item claim and then relist it. If you are out of time to get your fees back, then just relist it now.