How do I befriend someone I’ve previously confessed to?

I am an 18-year-old female who made the decision to confess to her crush randomly a couple of months ago. The catch is that he lives across the world, and we’ve never met in person.

He, a 19-year-old male, is a complete sweetheart. I’m sure he has some faults somewhere in there, but I really do adore him. He has all of the qualities I’d want in a prospective husband or even a good friend. It may sound stupid, but I decided that I liked him when I saw his name on that Zoom call a couple of months ago. My best friend can attest to that, at least. ( I didn’t know what he looked like until the next meeting). And the more we spoke (which really wasn’t a lot), the more I wanted to know.

I will be moving to where he lives for university in a month or so ( which is the main reason I went on the Zoom call in the first place)). So, I decided to confess in the first place because I don’t have time for the stress that liking someone brings me, and I have other things to worry about. I didn’t expect him to like me back; that would be absurd, but I wanted us to be friends at least.

He nicely rejected me, which I accepted, but our conversations (all of which consisted of me texting first once every month and him still responding to me with very dry responses that (he might just be a shitty texter, IDK; my thoughts at the time )) were stilted. I got sick of it, so I told him that I was “retiring from texting him,” and then he finally told me that he had been uncomfortable with my confession. Please remember that he had only decided to tell me this after months of me texting him and giving him the benefit of the doubt.

I was heartbroken as that was the last thing I wanted to do. After this, I didn’t text him for another month or so, and then last week, I asked him for someone’s number, and he answered. We had some short discourse/small talk, and then I asked him if my talking to him like this made him uncomfortable. He said, “No, not really.” I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I liked his message, as my friend suggested.

The thing is, as much as I liked to crawl into a hole and never have to interact with him again. I’ll have to, whether I like it or not, for the next 2/3 years at least because of circumstances mainly out of my control.

So, how do I unscrew this? I just want to be his friend. I’m sure it might eventually happen because of his “niceness.” but I don’t want to wait for something that may never happen.

Help, please? 🙁