Is he shy or uninterested? :(

[Hannah]

Hi
Apologies in advance if this is long but I feel like I need to make a breakdown of the story for it to make sense.
I wanted to ask this question because I’ve spent weeks now being confused by a guy I like – I don’t know whether he’s shy or just not interested in me. When we met for the first time I was sure that he was interested because he kept glancing at me from across the room and we exchanged smiles and small talk etc. He found me on Instagram that same day and followed but has never messaged me or anything like that. A few months later we met again and had a really great conversation as if we had known each other forever. He’s noticeably very shy and reserved but I felt like he really opened up, told me about his family, work etc., he even remembered small details about me that we talked about all those months earlier; only to then go really quiet for the rest of the day, almost like he was avoiding me. After that day I had to message him a few times about work-related stuff but each time he took ages to reply and didn’t really seem like he wanted to initiate further conversation, so I assumed he just didn’t like me as a person and didn’t want to talk to me.
THEN we unexpectedly met for the third time in a work setting and he seemed genuinely happy to see me, even though he was noticeably nervous (which my friend confirmed). I’m VERY shy as well and I was too nervous to walk up to him and start a conversation (I pretty much avoided him lol), but I feel like we were very aware of each other’s presence in the room, I caught him looking in my direction a few times. Finally he walked up to me and he looked like he built up all the courage to approach me; he was so sweet and smiley, all the body language signs showed that he was interested in me; but after a few minutes he sort of cut the conversation short, as if he got too nervous and had to run away. The next night he went to an event where I was supposed to be but wasn’t. When I saw that he went I messaged him just to start a conversation and he replied a couple of hours later (probably right after the party) saying that I should’ve come and that he expected to see me (which made me think he *wanted* to see me). I replied in the morning but I’m not very good at being flirtatious so my message was friendly but didn’t really lead anywhere. He opened it after a week and hasn’t replied, which really confuses me.
I know he’s shy, even his friends said that he’s shy, not really great at dating and that he’s had his heart broken in the past. When we meet in person I get all the signs that he’s interested in me, but then I don’t know why he wouldn’t even reply to me when he himself said that he wanted to see me.
I really really like him but I’m also very shy and I’m aware that I might have concealed my interest in him and he might never make a move if he doesn’t have signs that I’m interested. Don’t want to message him again seeing that he’s not very responsive and I’m too nervous to show that I like him in case I get rejected and embarrassed.
Would appreciate any advice on this. Is he just shy? Does he think I’m not interested? Is he actually not interested and I’m just delusional? I don’t think I could’ve made it all up – I intuitively feel like we had great chemistry each time in person.
Sorry this was so long, look forward to hearing back! Thank you!

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