Did I lead him on?

Hi so I plan to break up with someone, kind of my boyfriend, because of a few reasons, but in a way I feel like I’ve led him on.

We’re both in high school btw, I’m a year older. We’ve known each other for some years now, were never super close, but this year we’ve started to hang out more often. Only in these past two weeks, we’ve gotten a lot closer. Before going on our first date, we told each other we liked each other (after 5 days of hanging out, pretty much).

We’ve gone on two dates now, and during the second one I realized that we just don’t click very well. I realized that I haven’t felt like my true authentic self around him. On our last date, I got this sense of relief leaving. I found myself getting tired of what he had to say and it felt like I was forcing myself to act interested. The biggest thing that throws me off by far is how he talks about other people. Whether it’s his friends, his ex, his teachers, complete strangers, or his enemies…he will absolutely bash them. I also notice how he demonizes people who don’t like him. And I’ve met most of the people he talks about and I think all of them are deserving of respect! It makes me afraid of what he says behind my back. Besides this issue, I still think that our senses of humor and “social battery” are just incompatible with each other. He talks about this, it doesn’t interest me. He tells this joke, but I don’t find it funny. In cases like these, I pretend because I don’t know what I should do instead…

So yeah, I’m gonna break up with him, even though we’ve never called each other bf or gf, nor have we said that we were in a relationship.

These past two weeks, I’ve always felt unsure about him. He’s always made the first moves and as far as I know, he likes me a lot. It makes me feel terrible because I feel like I’ve led him on. Before our dates, I knew that I didn’t find all his jokes funny, that he talked bad about people, that we may be different in socializing. But those five days of being with him was so fun that I thought I should give it a chance and that I shouldn’t throw it away. I was interested in the potential and I appreciated the fun parts but I was aware of the bad parts and was overall unsure.

But I knew for sure on our second date that it wasn’t meant to be.

I just feel as though I did something wrong, like this could’ve been avoided. Maybe I should’ve been more honest with myself about how much I liked being around him? Maybe I just should’ve known early on that it wasn’t meant to be? Maybe I should’ve told him that I wanted to go on a few dates before we became anything official (even though we technically are not, but hey idk we lack communication on that part)? Or maybe I didn’t lead him on since we only went on two dates and haven’t been together for very long? Maybe I instead gave him a chance and didn’t lead him on?

Idk I feel like I’ve messed up but I just want to know exactly where. I feel that he’s immature but heck I still care about him and I don’t wanna hurt his feelings. I want to know what I’ve done wrong, what I should’ve done, what I should avoid next time, etc.

Tldr: gave a boy I was unsure about a chance, feels like I led him on because I knew beforehand about why it probably wouldn’t work.