I (F19) have been seeing a guy (M19) for about 3 months. It started when he approached me and we instantly hit it off, resulting in us hooking up on the first meeting. After that hookup, he asked me out on a date, but I had to take a rain check since I needed time to go home and fix my car. Since he asked me out, I just assumed we were in a relationship, but he would correct me a few times, reminding me that we were not dating yet since we haven’t been on a date. He has a lengthy dating history and earlier had said he was scared of committing to me because he felt I was “too good for him” and did not think he would be enough. I asked him if he was ready to work through that and be in a relationship and he said yes.
Fast forward a month: We’ve hooked up a few times, but now he invites me over to his place for an official first date. We do end up having sex again, but we also get takeout and cuddle and it is easily one of the best days of my life. He’s definitely sweet and responsive. However, this changed ever since he had a falling out with his friends. He started taking days to respond and hardly showed interest in me over text. I confronted him about this and we met up. I told him we are going all or nothing (meaning no friends with benefits situation) and he agreed and apologized, explaining that he has just been in a funk lately and it will pass, but the texting issues continued.
Two weeks later, I am at his house as we agreed to spend the last few days of school together. He brought up summer and said that if I met someone or had an opportunity to experience something, I shouldn’t feel burdened by him (since we will be in different states over the summer). I quickly got upset and said fuck no, we are in a relationship, to which he seemed very surprised. Clearly, “all or nothing” meant something different to him. So, I blew up at him (which I’m not proud of) and he explained that he just meant he wanted me to have the option to see other people over the summer but not himself. I ended up sleeping on the couch for a bit, then we had makeup sex. Afterwards, he was extremely sweet, cuddling me and kissing me goodnight, but some of the things he said during that argument irked me, like “I’m in college, I’m not looking to marry”, “We’re in a talking stage”, “I thought the time to announce something like that would be in the fall when school starts again, not now”, “What so you meet my family then what?”, “Don’t you think if we were in a relationship I would be doing more, like buying you flowers and texting better?”, stuff like that. Before I left I told him that we should either break up now or go all in this summer and he agreed, saying that if it sticks over the summer then we can pick up from there and be in a relationship.
After that, it took three days of no texts for him to text me “hi”, to which I responded “hey”. Then, he doesn’t text back for hours and I text again, “If we both put in the effort there should be no reason this doesn’t work,” and he replies saying he agrees. I’m not sure what to do at this point. All my friends dislike him and think I should break up, but they haven’t met him personally to know how sweet he is. I feel so in love with him, but I am aware I have untreated mental issues that might be skewing my perspective. Every time I’ve tried to breakup with him due to his detachment he has insisted on meeting face-to-face to talk it out. He handles conflict resolution extremely well and I love how he tries to understand my side. I thought I have communicated clearly but now I am not sure. What can I do to make this relationship more secure for the both of us, if anything?
TL;DR: I (F19) have been hooking up with this guy (M19) for months. He’s extremely kind and sweet in person but shows little interest otherwise. I thought we were dating but apparently we aren’t.