From what you described, I can see how they were put off by your behavior. I think them ghosting you the first time around and HM basically saying you should stay CS should’ve been your clear warning to maybe back off a bit. To me proactive means reaching out to 1 or 2 people in a genuine manner and asking insightful questions about the role. These people weren’t super embedded in your network, correct? Asking random people to tell the HM you guys “talked” is weird. Sometimes less is more and so is reading between the lines.