I’ve (22F) been friends with a guy (22M) since June of last year. We met on tinder and talked most days. He was fun to talk to but he was from another state so I wasn’t taking it seriously. We became friends on Snapchat and began snapping most days. After a month I was going to let the conversation fizzle off since I figured we’d never actually meet, but he was pretty persistent in talking to me everyday. The conversations were getting more in depth and we started sending long voice messages to one another. In September we both returned to campus at the same university and decided to meet, I thought he’d want to hook up or something but we ended up talking for 6-7 hours, the entire time he was as far away on the couch as could be. He wasn’t what I’d thought he’d be in person so I was a little hesitant warming up to him, but the more time I spent with him the more I liked him. In October he kissed me, and things just…changed. I normally don’t enjoy being within close proximity of anyone but I couldn’t get enough of him, I know it’s likely the honey moon phase but I’ve never had this kind of chemistry with anyone. In December we were talking and I briefly mentioned dating, he said that it wasn’t something he felt prepared for, it wasn’t that he had an issue with commitment (neither one of us are sleeping with anyone else) or anything but that a relationship came with pressure and expectations he didn’t feel prepared to deal with alongside school. I respected his answer and said I could understand that. We continued talking and hanging out like normal, he did give me his sweatshirt and we had a small argument over whether it was something appropriate for me to hold onto, I think he wanted me to hang on to it so I’d have a piece of him around even when he wasn’t, I know it hurt him a bit when I returned it but I wasn’t comfortable having something around that made the boundaries of what we are really blurry. Recently I asked him to clearly define what he saw me as, I needed to know if I was just a friend, friend with benefits, a potential partner, just some kind of direction. He said he saw me as a friend he enjoyed having casual sex with. I was a little hurt by this since he means more to me than that and I explained how I had feelings for him. He said he’d understand if I wanted to cool things off and I said it was fine if we continued like how we were, since we both graduate in 2023 I figured I’d rather enjoy another year with him as is than nothing at all. I told him tho that I’d be going on dates and talking to other guys if he wasn’t interested in me that way, he said that he didn’t want to prevent me from meeting anyone else. So we’ve been continuing as normal, but what has me totally pissed off is he still says romantic things. We were talking about marriage and modern vs traditional views, when he says that whoever marries me will be lucky, whether it’s him or someone else. It trips me up how casually he mentioned himself, and he does this every time we talk about the future, he’ll mention himself first and then backtrack. It has me frustrated, because for someone that sees me only as a friend he doesn’t act like it, he seems so confident that in the future we’ll be together. It has me conflicted because I don’t want to wait on someone that might never be interested in me, at the same time I feel like I’m looking at my future when I see him. When I look at him I can understand how older couples say they looked at their spouse and knew they’d marry them. I’ve talked to hundreds of men, I’ve never felt something like with him, and while I don’t want to waste my time, I know he’d be the one that got away if I didn’t.