Was I friend zoned ?

I have feelings for a guy that I work with. He’s a firefighter but part time he works retail 1 or 2 days a week. He’s a great guy and very handsome. He found out from a friend that I was interested in him and seemed interested to as well; however, he recently got out of a long term relationship of 7 years. We finally spoke to each other about how we’re feeling and he told me that he’s just taking a break from relationships since he just got out of one and he wants to be friends and when he’s ready he’ll approach me. At first, it sounded good because I understand needing time to heal after a breakup, but the more I think about it, I’m starting to feel that I was friend zoned but in a polite way. What do you think ?