Do you think he still likes me?

[furbaby]

Sorry this is long!

 

I met this guy (I'll call him John) about 9 months ago. When we met, my ex-boyfriend and I had just gone through a very difficult break up. I'm the kind of person who usually takes at least a few months to be single after ending a relationship, but John is smart, funny, cute, we have a lot in common, and we hit it off pretty well. So I figured I'd see where things would go. We went on a few dates, and after hanging out a few times he told me that he really liked me a lot. My feelings were just kind of lukewarm. I'm not sure if he's an extremely guarded person, or if he's just kind of unemotional, but I found it very difficult to connect with him on an emotional level, and that made it hard for me to get close to him in any way. Part of that could also be due to the fact that I was not over my ex and my feelings were pretty raw and mixed up at the time. Things kind of fizzled out between us, and I never even kissed him. I always felt bad for possibly hurting him or making him feel like he had been led on, because I really do think he's a good guy and I didn't intend for things to go the way they did.

 

Fast forward to a few months later. I still felt bad, and I sent him an email just apologizing for ever hurting him. He responded with a really nice email saying that he understood that I had been fresh out of a bad break-up, and that since we never even kissed, he hoped that we could be friends. I felt good about that, and we started hanging out from time to time. I still wasn't ready for a new relationship, but I felt OK hanging out with him since he said he wanted to be friends. There have been a few instances where I have been unsure of his intentions. For one thing, he always tries to pay for me (I don't let him). He'll also surprise me and bring me silly little presents sometimes (nothing fancy, just weird little things that he thinks I'd like). He's always very gentlemanly, and maybe flirty, but he's always been that way. He doesn't seem too happy if I talk about other guys, and more and more lately, he will come hang out with me at the drop of a hat.

 

Do you think he still likes me? I'm not good at picking up on this kind of thing. I don't really get why he would still like me; it surprises me that he would still be interested in me after I kind of rejected him early on. He's successful and cool and attractive, and I feel like it would be easy for him to meet someone great. That is to say, he's not desperate or a doormat or anything. Maybe I'm just misinterpreting his actions. The more we have been hanging out lately, the more I like being around him. Now that time has passed since my last relationship, I think I'm ready to maybe try something romantic with him. I'm not sure how to move forward from here. What do you think I should do?