OP, just popping in to give you some moral support here.
Two years ago I met a guy OLD. It was my second relationship, I was in the process of divorcing, I was very defended and set out to find myself a nice, safe ‘companion’ to go out in dates with. Well how wrong I was! After a number of ‘meh’ but hilarious and very safe dates, I met this delightful guy and boom! Totally bowled over. I felt sick in the early days of dating, he, in contrast, had had lots of exciting prospects OLD which had never come to anything. He vowed not to get excited. He plodded. Compartmentalised. Got absorbed in his work. Was sometimes lacklustre about going out. Honestly it nearly killed me.
I stressed, obsessed, agonised, but I spilled it all our to my counsellor and spared him the scary angst, although he did worry I was a bit full on 
although j have since ‘fessed up that I (like you) thought it was too good to be true and was bound to fail. BUT, two years down the line we are both thick as thieves. Smitten. Spend as much time together as we can. We are talking about living together one day (both have dc so easy does it).
And you know what, his slow ploddingness spoke volumes about the sort of person he is - thoughtful, doesn’t rush into stuff. It’s very healthy!
Hang in there, kid. But don’t expect a satisfying answer to your question. It’s a hard one to answer and best left alone in my opinion. In the end we had some clumsy half-joking l text exchange about would you like to be my girlfriend. Haha! We were not friends on Facebook until 5 months in and he wanted to show me something.
And ‘Little Friend’ I think is super sweet. Far better that than ‘babe’.... I think it’s all good.... really good.
Slow and steady -wins the race.