Rather than spending his time making assumptions about what his staff is doing, your manager should be spending his time managing, coaching, and communicating. When managers disappear and start making assumptions about their staff, it is time to start making assumptions about their managerial skills.
At this point, you and he should sit down and discuss what happened on this project. You need to hear his full evaluation of your performance, and he needs to hear your thoughts as well. Let him know about any parts of the project that you enjoyed and that went particularly well, and then tell him that you believe the overall project would have met its objectives if you had more contact and communication with him.
However, rather than dwelling on his ability to be invisible, try to focus on ways to avoid this kind of problem in the future. Your next project should include some formal benchmark dates for the two of you to meet, along with the flexibility to have additional meetings if key issues, problems, or questions arise. You can assume that anything short of this will only lead to another failure.
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