Why did he do this?

This is a vent. I wish I could understand why this guy I had a crush on kept playing with my feelings?! I just didn’t deserve it, I don’t lead people on and I never lead him on. He KNEW how I felt even before I said anything to him. Why did he keep feeding into something he knew he wanted nothing of?

I had a crush on a coworker, it started off slow and I really thought he was hitting on me first. I know it might sound funny and maybe delusional but it was the way he looked at me. When we were around each other he would always treat me differently, at least that how I felt. The way he was; he seemed attentive, caring, funny, worried and I would some times catch him being jealous if I were talking to male customer or a coworker. I have to admit I was hesitant to admit I liked him at first, I’m not very good at relationships, so I would pull away and at times be a tad immature but after he went on a trip and I really saw how much I missed him I decided to give it a try. But he never made a move, he would at times imply stuff or even make it seem like he was gonna ask me out but he never did. I started to tell myself that he was just this way with everyone, the joking and whatnot and that I was reading too much into everything else.

The thing is, anytime I would try to pull away and set a boundary where he was concerned. I would feel like he would realize and again feed into my feelings. He would treat me one way one on one and differently if in a group. Finally, I had enough of this uncertainty and told him how I felt through text because of the pandemic we weren’t seeing each other. I told him in the text that I didn’t expect a reply back because truthfully I was telling him how I felt in the hopes of him stopping this pull he had over me. He ended up not responding but he was behaving in a childish way, he had taken down a drawing he gave me from my work station. So I text him asking what was his problem, if he wanted to meet up. We ended up meeting and again I told him how I felt, he told me that we worked together and that he didn’t want me to feel led on because he joked with everyone the same way (to which I replied that I did feel treated differently by him). That he was a different person outside the bank and why exactly did I like him, so I told him he had valid reasons and that we can’t choose who we like but we can choose who we entertain. That I wasn’t expecting a declaration from him because to me he was doing him at the moment but that I wasn’t sure because at times I thought he might like me. So he ends up telling me that he always found me cute, that he had wanted to hang out with me but felt like I would say no. That my personality can be a bit abrasive and he wasn’t sure. With that new info, I just wasn’t sure what to make of it so I asked him what did he want to go on a date. He said yes but the more we spoke the more it seemed like he regretted his decision. I ended up asking him what it was that he wanted, did he really wan to go out with me or was he regretting having said yes. He went back to saying how we work together and that the manager didn’t like him so I broke the date off. I told him if he wanted to be friends, I could be his friend, that I had always liked him as a friend but that I wasn’t at the bank to boost his ego.

Flash forward, he continued to do the same things. Just plain confusing me with his actions. Jealous that I had told him I knew someone that knew Japanese, he even wrote a note to the person that said your an idiot. When he found out it was my sister, he felt stupid for mistreating me. Then he again had a jealousy episode when I had mentioned I found someone cute, he ended up calling me thirsty and we got in an argument because of it. I told him I hadn’t gotten the impression he was into me when we met up and that I wanted to know exactly what it was he wanted with me.

The things that I didn’t like about him was that I felt very gaslighted. He would say things to me, just to me, he would act differently around me. When I told my other coworker ( and also good friend) what had happened last year, the first words out of her mouth were that she didn’t believe he liked me. He made me feel crazy, it was so subtle the way he would act with me and around a group. And when we went 2 months without speaking, he told me he had never called only me thirsty but myself and the other coworker. That I heard what I wanted.

i hate that until today I feel uncertain about everything that happened with him. I feel like he played with my feelings, my emotions and my mental but he didn’t care. Why couldn’t he stop after we spoke at the park?! If he really didn’t want me to think that he was hitting on me or leading me on why did he continue to act like he was jealous? Why did he continue to act differently around me? I didn’t deserve it.