Dating : Does he actually like me or is he just wasting my time?

Dating : Does he actually like me or is he just wasting my time?

I (17F) had feelings for this guy (20M) during my last semester. He would show all the basic signs of being interested.

– he’s an extrovert so he’d be really good in our conversations and ask me a lot of questions about myself

– steer the conversations into deep topics (to get to know me I guess)

– helped me out a lot without me having to ask him (he’s my senior)

– touch me (my shoulder, or my lower back at times) in a non- creepy way

– would look at me (a lot)

– everyone thought there was something going on between us (there really wasn’t, we were just talking) but there was a lot of gossip floating around about us

– all my friends said that he most probably liked me because of the way he would act around me in social situations

It all seems great so far but here’s the catch. So apparently there was this girl who liked him before me. She’s the really jealous and desperate type. She’d just be all over him all the time and she was evidently really jealous of me. She took it so far that people just really felt sorry for her, because the guy wouldn’t claim her to be his girlfriend. She’d do everything in her power to make it seem that the two of them were dating but he would just never treat her like a girlfriend or even claim her as his girl. Me being someone who plays hard to get and hates to seem desperate in any way, I just tried to ignore her. I thought that the guy would realize who the better match for him is and that he would stop wasting his time with such a girl. But I’d hear talks of them going out together and that really hurt me, because if he likes her then why is he raising my hopes? I decided to let it go and move on because I deserve better than a player. Anyway, we then get a two week break from university and he texts me first and we kinda keep talking throughout the break. Fast forward to summer, when he would start texting me first and initially I’d reply but not leave any scope for further conversation because I was so done with him, but then it got to a point where I WANTED to talk to him.

And to clarify, the entire time we talked, we were only friends; he never made plans alone with me, neither did he openly flirt. He’d compliment and all that but not too much. He kind of has the reputation of a player. To add on, he was in a relationship with this girl before I joined university, and I’d heard about it from some people from his year; but when he mentioned her to me, he made it seem like they were just best friends who had a falling out.

So, what should I do? From what I can gather, he just wants to keep me as an option until he feels like taking it further than just being friends, or he just wants to be friends (but that doesn’t explain why he’d go out of his way to help me during multiple occasions, give me emotional support and buy me gifts and continue to text me when I appeared uninterested). I really don’t want to waste my time again.