He said he doesn’t find me attractive but still wants to date me.

I (21F) started dating my long time friend (25M) a few weeks back. I’ve known him for years and I’m very fond of him. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks back when we finally got around to seeing each other in person. He doesn’t live too far away from me, but we just never met up, I don’t know why.
The first time we saw each other it just a friendly meetup over some drinks, but later in the evening we got more intimate, we held hands, he put his arm around my shoulders, all that cute stuff. I’ve always known I had some sort of feelings for him, and so has he, but the timing was never right.
We had a beautiful date on Sunday and we had out first kiss. One thing you should maybe know is that I’m his first. At everything. This was is first kiss. I was the first woman he’s held hands with romantically.
Well, we talked today and we started talking about attraction, and he pretty much said I’m not his type, and he doesn’t find me too attractive, but with each one of our dates his attraction to me grows. He followed it up with saying he finds me cute.
It really hurt me but I respect his preferences and asked him if he wanted to go back to just being friends. He said no, he enjoys my company and he feels at peace with me, he also likes it when I touch him, when I kiss him.
I guess I’m just confused now. Maybe it’s due to his lack of experience that he said that? Because surely you wouldn’t like a kiss from someone you find repulsive.
I don’t know. I’m just so very confused and sad.