What should I do about this guy I like?

It has been my experience that if a man is interested in me, he lets me know pretty immediately. If he doesn’t, I have found he isn’t interested. Flirting a little is sometimes an ego booster for a man when he really has no intentions of following through. I think he was probably letting you down gently and I think if I were you, I would move on. If he is interested, he will let you know, but why wait around for him?

He may very well like you, but because of what he actually said, I’m guessing that he has circumstances, which you may be unaware of, that he may be unable to tell you about. He may have some serious financial problems (like just being poor, which you can hide for awhile) and he might be ashamed of that situation, and thinks that if he got involved with you, he would not be able to be on equal footing with you. I’ve been in that position myself, and it’s not very fun and no one wants to tell the other person this fact for fear of receiving pity in return.

He may have never been in a relationship before and maybe at his age, I’m assuming he’s well into adulthood and not a kid of 21 or younger, right? He may be ashamed of the fact that he has zero experience, probably because he’s kind of shy, and because he’s kind of shy he could never reveal this to you without feeling terribly embarrassed.

He may be shy, and also in a relationship (or have deep feelings) with someone else, that maybe he is not able to define or describe. Maybe he is involved or in love with someone, but they don’t have a full fledged relationship with a nice clean label to put on it. He probably liked you too, but he might believe that it’s not right to be involved in more than one relationship, even if the original relationship is not clearly defined.

He might be gay. Been there, done that. Don’t think that gay fellows won’t take or enjoy your flirty conversations, but when confronted with the idea of an actual relationship, that’s where they have to pull the plug. And this shy fellow, may or may not be out of the closet and he probably doesn’t want you to know.

This poor guy, may have familial obligations, such as an ill parent that he lives with and/or takes care of. Even though he probably liked you and enjoyed the flirtations, he simply cannot afford you the time to persue a real relationship with you, but doesn’t want to explain to you why he can’t and doesn’t want to have to hear your reasons for how it could possibly work out for the two of you. People in caregiver positions often cannot fathom being in a relationship with a significant other, because the caregiver position is simply their whole life (whether they wanted that or not).

And last, but not least, he may simply have one of those social anxiety/phobia situations in which, even if that person might like the idea of dating and a relationship, they simply cannot move forward to even get involved, not because they don’t like you, they simply have too many mental blockades in the way, and again, this might be quite embarrassing for him and he would likely not want to tell you.

I would simply not wait around for this fellow to make a move. I think he has made a subtle move by his reply, without having to tell you the real reason. I think you should leave him in peace and simply enjoy the time you had together. If, by some miracle, his circumstances change and he comes around with a changed mind, then by all means give it a go, but please don’t badger him and don’t beat yourelf up with all the why’s and what ifs.

Seems like there’s only two possibilities here…

1) He’s not interested and is letting you down easy. It could just be that you misinterpreted apparent signals he was sending. This was my first reaction while reading your question. Formal text messages and a 2-day delay followed by what sounds like a brush off. It’s not uncommon that people take interactions the wrong way and misinterpret the feelings others might have toward them.

2) He actually DOES have a lot going on, perhaps something serious, but he is interested in you. There could be something going on in his personal life that he doesn’t want to bring you into. To be honest, I’m not super confident this is the answer.

I suppose there could be the third option that he is just so incredibly shy that he’s scared to start something with you. However, shy or not, most men would be psyched to have a woman take the pressure off of them and make the first move. If anything, this should’ve made it very easy for him to say yes with little effort, so I doubt this is the case. If it is, however, this would be beyond shyness and into something a little more serious/clinical – sounds like baggage to me.

Regardless, I’d move on for now. He’s given you no indication that he will follow up with you or even has any intention to get in touch with you again. Waiting around is just asking for disappointment. Who knows? Maybe he’ll call. But in the event that he doesn’t, you don’t want to be sitting by the phone waiting for something that may never come.

I’ll give you some advice as a sometimes shy, but very introverted guy so I hope this helps. First of I disagree with the notion that if a guy likes me, he would pursue me since not all guys are assertive in that way. I do know one thing however, whether I talk to a girl first or vice versa if we hit it off and I decide that I’m interested in her then I’ll usually try to make something happen. Not all guys do the same things, like many women and dating ‘experts’ seem to imply. Also, circumstances in one’s life can have a powerful affect in how one relates to another, and I’m not aware of this guy’s circumstances as they really are happening, so it is difficult to make a judgement call based on some of the things you’ve described above. Personally I think he is feeding off of the interest he knows you have in him, and being there for him rather than having any interest in you. If the guy was never with another woman before maybe there would be an exception, but I don’t know his history. I would back off here if I was you and see what he does. (sorry I can’t paragraph on the computer I’m using right now).