Hi Yarina,

I don’t think he’s playing with you. I do think it sounds like this man is emotionally unavailable but it’s likely because of fear. He’s afraid of being hurt again. He is one that is going to have to probably move at a snaaaiiillls pace, which means he is going to have to find someone who is comfortable moving that slow, and it doesn’t sound like you are. You are also expecting him to show certain feelings and do certain gestures fairly early on, so you seem to want to move at a faster (and possibly more regular) pace, which is completely understandable, but it means you two aren’t a match.  Neither one of you are wrong, you’re just different. Some people have to start off as a friendly relationship that builds as intimacy grows, so he will be able to develop feelings, but it’s going to take some time for him and he’s not going to be able to fall into romantic gestures and anything beyond casual until he’s really ready for that, so you stating your feelings of him not doing that probably did make him back off a bit because that stuff is scary for him in new relationships, even if he won’t even admit that to himself.

In other words, he’s not a bad guy for not being able to open up. He’s been hurt and he’s likely afraid of getting close to someone only to end up feeling that again. Think of it as fear of intimacy and fear of abandonment… it takes people a long time to open up and REALLY let someone in when they have those fears. You’ve already told him you can’t handle that baggage, which likely closed him off to you more, and I think you’re right in that you want to move faster than he does and you don’t like how slow he’s moving, so I think it’s a good idea to just move on and find someone who maybe doesn’t have such strong fears in these areas and will move as fast as you’d like to. That’d be a better match for you.  This doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you or him or that one of you didn’t care, you just don’t match up on the relationship progress speed.