A friend acts distant every so often when we get too close. Any advice?

Last November or so I met a guy on grindr (essentially a gay hook up app). I was straight and experimenting and he was too. But anyway, we started that and a couple times after we hooked up we started just hanging out with no sex. Then after break, we got really close. He was crashing at my apartment often and he eventually moved in. The friends with benefits stuff was happening, and kind of escalated it a little...cuddling, kissing, calling each other pet names, etc. I went along with it, and it not that I didnt want to, he definitely didnt force me. But it just felt weird.

Long story short, spring break happened, then the virus cancelled the rest of the year and we never lived with eachother again. And I was starting to catch feelings but I got over it.

We had a friendship going for awhile after. We would face time, and theres times we would hang out but it was harder now that we live 50 miles away from eachother and he doesnt have a car. But I went to hang with him. To be clear, the friends with benefits stuff ended after we left more spring break. We just hung out like normal friends do.

I do buy him stuff sometimes, just to be nice and a good friend to him, nothing more. But I became clingy since it ended so abruptly and it may have annoyed him. But I backed off we have had a real good friendship especially the past couple weeks. But we never talked about ending the benefits stuff, which Im fine with but I sometimes feel like its the elephant in the room when we talk. We sometimes talk for 4 hours a day everyday and then he ghosts me for a few days when we start getting close again. Then after a few days he asks to talk or hang out again, but still acts more distant. Its a reoccurring 2 week pattern that he just doesnt talk to me at all and then he comes back like nothing ever happened. And he acts more distant until we reconnect again, but then when I think he feels were getting too close, he just stops talking.