How do I (F35) act around the guy who just rejected me?
I recently went out on a date with a guy I have had a crush on for a little while now. We both hang out together at a monthly game night hosted by a mutual friend of ours. It is worth noting this guy is also one of my older brother's closest friends (my brother lives out of state and is not involved in these hang outs, but a lot of their mutual friends are). I asked this guy on a date and he said yes (hell yeah), so we went out the following weekend. The date was really nice, we grabbed dinner and a movie, but by the end of the film as we were walking back to my car I was thinking "well, it's too bad this guy isn't into me at all." We'd gotten along well and had good conversation, but I got absolutely zero flirtations from this dude all night. We split the bill at dinner, I insisted on buying the movie tickets since the date was my idea. It all felt very platonic, just two pals hanging out. Bummer, but worse ways a date can go, honestly.
But then he asked if I wanted to go back to his place for a night cap.
And after chatting and drinking a little and listening to some records, he asked if he could kiss me, and our night moved on from there. And you guys, it was lovely. This man is an absolute charmer. I shit you not, we read poetry together.
The next morning he made me coffee, and while I sat in his kitchen in his hoodie, he told me he'd had a nice time and asked if I was free the next weekend. HE asked ME. And then he texted me later that day, just asking how my Sunday was going. He reached out first. I like this guy so much, so I was pretty over the moon about it.
But then as we got closer to the following weekend, he kind of dropped off responding to my texts. I asked if I should just meet back at his place and didn't even get a response and had to follow up the day of our "second date" to ask what time I should stop by. This was not a good sign, but I didn't want to read into it too much, like, maybe he's just a bad texter?
When I got to his place he said we should talk, and then he told me he "wasn't feeling it" and "didn't see it going anywhere serious." He was worried he was "leading me on." He said these situations can get messy and he didn't want to complicate anything between us and make our monthly hang outs awkward.
Since I was still suffering from tonal whiplash and was worried maybe I had just completely misread our whole situation, I just said, "thanks for your honesty" and then we went on an hour and a half long walk together because, I dunno, I'd driven all the way there and he had agreed to hang out with me? It was kind of awful but also kind of grounding because it meant the last thing he said to me wasn't how much he didn't like me. So there's that, I guess.
But now that I've had some time to think about this whole situation, I am definitely not crazy right? Like, no shit you should be worried you were leading me on! What the hell? How the hell else was I supposed to interpret every signal he sent me?
But I don't know how I should behave around him now. On the one hand, it feels like he just put on a whole show to convince me he was a charming guy so that he could get laid. (Which, honestly if he'd just been upfront about his intentions, would have been FINE. I'm not above a one night stand. I was pretty pumped I got laid too. I just wish it didn't feel like he'd tricked me into it!)
On the other hand, I get that people's minds can change. Maybe he was into me and then just... decided that he wasn't? He did have the decency to tell me to my face. If I had to guess, he was probably planning on sleeping with me a few more times before ending things, but because of my familial relation to a friend of his, he stopped it sooner than he would have.
In either case he's being a dirt bag. But I guess I don't know if I'm being overly sensitive. I admit I have not had a lot of sexual partners, but that's not because it's some big special thing to me. I just haven't wanted it very much. I'm worried if I act too pissed off at him, it comes off as me being heartbroken because we slept together. And that's not it, he just made me feel really stupid for falling for his little charmer act. And I want to let him know that was a shitty way to treat me. If he wanted to keep it casual he could have just said so without making me feel like I was lied to.
But I also don't want to come off as overly emotional or like I'm pining after him. I'm offended! I'm embarrassed, and I don't like the idea of some creep getting off that easy! But is he being a creep, or am I actually just being too butt hurt about the whole thing?
I'll be seeing him at our usual group social hang next week. Do I play it cool or do I let him have it?