Yes, he told me frankly that he does not want a committed relationship because he has too many personal issues to deal with at the moment. But then he contacts me 24/7 and wants to see me all the time. He behaves in a committed way (to an extent) so what gives?

At the moment I think either 1) I tell him that if he still does want to be together romantically, it is best we cut off the connection for now or 2) Scale the ‘friendship’ way back to being more distant. I’m not sure how to do this without telling him this is what I am doing and why.

I’m sad because I love this person but I feel this isn’t really good for me. I feel he’s having his cake and eating it.

It seems you’ve made your decision in the post below this, but I want to respond to maybe help clear this up.  It sounds to me like he’s simply being honest in that he doesn’t seem to feel like he’d be able to handle a committed relationship right now. If that’s the case, it’s a good thing that he realizes that and expresses it to you because committed relationships DO come with a lot of extra responsibilities that you just don’t have when you’re single.  I can think of dozens of reasons why someone would stay out of a long-term relationship that have nothing to do with anyone else.

It’s likely he’s calling you all the time and wanting to hang out (which are things you’d do if you were in a relationship) because he probably really does enjoy your company and likes to be around you.  That is sort of separate from his desire to NOT be in a relationship rather than going hand-in-hand like most people seem to think. Sometimes you can meet a really great person but just still not feel like you can commit for whatever reason, and that’s probably really specific to him and likely has little to do with any feelings he does or doesn’t have for you.

So maybe don’t think of it as him “having his cake and eating it, too” (which, really, what else are you supposed to do with cake? haha)… but more like he just really enjoys your company and that’s it. It’s not necessarily a bad or wrong thing on his part, it just is what it is and he’s being open about it, which I think is good.

Anyway, if what you’ve been doing is not enough for you, then I definitely agree that you should back off and not continue the friendship, because, even though it’s possible it could develop into something later on when he gets whatever issues out of the way, there are no guarantees that it will ever turn into more. If you continued the friendship, you’d have to be okay with that.  And who knows, your decision to move on with your life and date other people may spur some “fear of loss” into him and change his mind.

Even though rationally I recognise his reasons for not committing further is all about him – my self-esteem is suffering from the fact he doesn’t seem to want more than friendship despite the fact we were more before.

I think this is totally understandable, but it’s possible that he didn’t realize that he wasn’t ready for a relationship or had things that he really should deal with first until he was in one and then he felt he needed to back off.  Has he said specifically what is going on in his personal life that he needs to deal with?

It really sounds like he has some issues he needs to deal with because something is stopping him from moving forward, and I really doubt it has anything to do with you, even though you’d been more in the past. I hope he’s able to figure things out, but, in the meantime, I really think it’d be smart to back off, at least for a while. If he seems afraid and craving to be single yet is seeking constant companionship, he’s likely trying to distract himself from his problems rather than having to actually be alone and face them, which isn’t going to help him resolve them.  So continuing to be so close with him might actually enable him to keep spinning his wheels, if that makes any sense. Plus, it seems to be affecting you negatively emotionally, right? So it might be a good idea to just take a step back for a while, and you can always check in later and see how he’s doing.  I don’t think you have to cut him off cold turkey if you’re worried about that damaging your friendship. I’d just probably stop being so available to hang out and only catch up once in a while. You’re just really busy, you know?