A cry out for a dating advice 🙈

I haven’t dated someone seriously in about 5 years.

Recently and old friend of mine suggests we try talking and see how it goes , knowing we both live in different countries.

I didn’t take him seriously at that time and said yes thinking he would get over it over time.

After few months he started acting weird and showing an obvious interest in me and even told me he likes me.

After sometime i started liking him back.

He hasn’t been in a serious relationship in a very long time either and he’s been living his best single life which i know all about.

Few days ago he started getting distended and after i confronted him about he said:

That he had went out with his friends campaign and while there thought about having a one night stand but he didn’t and felt guilty about it which now is making him scared regarding us.

He says he likes me yet he doesn’t know if he wants to be in a relationship or not, and that regarding me if he is to be with me he wants us to get married after a while and that he is not sure if he wants to get committed like that just yet and that he is not sure of what he wants.

He says he cares about me way too much to play me around or make up lies but he is confused and scared that if he is to commit that he might end up cheating sense we are far apart for now and he doesn’t like to see me treated like that by anyone.

I told him that I understand and that we don’t have to be together and we can just go back to being friends which he said no.

The second option was okay go live your life and i will live mine too and we shall see how things will go. You go out with others and i will too. He said no lol

He said he still wants me to give him a couple of days to think and make up his mind.

Mind you the whole time that we have been talking we have been in a relationship but with no label and he wasn’t seeing anyone and kept asking me not to do so either and to be honest I only started taking that matter seriously recently.

At the end of the conversation out of nowhere he goes can i ask you a serious question?!

I said yes.

He goes can’t you move back please and let us get married and live together?!

I told him if you are serious about it , i can only do that once i am done with the years of experience that i need at my job to sit for an exam and get certified before then it is not possible.

Which for some reason the answer did make him happy.

I have known him for many years and i can tell if he really likes me or not. And so is our mutual friends.

He even admitted that they are all getting mad at him for not being able to figure out what he really wants a serious relationship or not.

He is not a bad person and he is way too out spoken so I don’t really think he is making up lies or stories or worried about rejecting me because i had already told him he is off the hock and we don’t have to keep it going which he was strongly against.

Help, I don’t know how to go about this

For now i am not txting or calling and giving him his space with the thought that he will ask for us to go back to being friends m.