Long time poster, NC. I posted in 90 days only back in January. Sorry, I sound like a gushing teenager below. As in, a fifteen year old texting a friend about her crush. I promise I am not a teenager. Please indulge me briefly.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/ninety_days_only/3482564-Help-me-interpret-a-hot-and-cold-crush-Relatively-meagre-amount-of-interaction
The sole respondent had some good advice, which I took!
Since then we’ve seen each other a few more times. You know that thing where you know someone likes you. I know he does!
Most recently i was back where he works and it was a slow day so we spent a couple of hours talking again, and covered that I would likely stay in his country for at least another three and hopefully more months (depending on the authorities in that country); he asked me whether I’d go for citizenship after that and I flatly said no. We walked back to his car together after he had finished his shift. I mentioned that I likely wouldn’t be back at his institution for various reasons (though as said I’d still be in the area for the at least the above timespan). In all honesty the reasons to not return to the institution were true; but I also wondered whether it would draw his hand and see whether he wanted to keep in contact or ask me out. He offered me a lift; even though I only lived a short walk up the road, and said it was hardly worth a lift, he was pleased when I accepted it. When we got to my destination and just before I got out of the car there was just this pause where I felt he maybe wasn’t going to say anything. So I said ‘Will we keep in touch?’, so he said quite defensively, again in that manner of a slight fear of ‘I know you might reject this about me’: ‘Well I only have email, I don’t have a phone or anything like that, so if that’s okay... do you have a good memory, or are you going to write it down?’ I said (I thought this was a lightbulb moment for me as he could initiate contact if he wanted to in that traditional gender role manner!) I’d write down my email address for him and he just had that look again - it sounds like I’m overinterpreting it (admittedly I might be!) but I feel he almost sets me mini tests, and when I fail them he has this look and demeanour, like, yeah, I knew you’d do that/an air of slightly sarcastic ‘ok then’. (As per my 90-day thread). By which I mean, I interpret it that he took it as proof of my not being sufficiently interested, or of not going about things in the right way, vs my taking his email address.
After that I asked him to read out my email address and made a show of making double sure he could read my handwriting. (It’s an actual possibility he doesn’t have a phone, as that is consistent with some of his other choices and values).
That was a month ago this Thursday 
He spent a lot of the time we were talking telling me about how busy he was this month - honestly showing off a bit (in a nice way) about all the new roles he had been asked to take on.
He works at a couple of other institutions in town as he was keen to tell me.
I don’t know what to do now. I feel deep down he really likes me. I normally convince myself of the opposite but there’s just something about him/it. He has always been almost obsessively honest about his shortcomings (not self depracating, but almost laying out his stall clearly from day 1 - almost like he was always giving me ample opportunity to reject him at each stage, if that makes any sense).
I also think he is terribly sensitive and self protective.
One thing that came up in conversation this last time is he is a little bit older than I thought he was and he was clearly worried about telling me. He in hindsight alluded strongly to that in our second ever conversation five months ago.
Is it:
- He’s just not that into me
I guess that means our conversations and his flirting were a way to pass the time for him?
- He is and I need to wait out an email
- He is and won’t contact me because he thinks I’m ambivalent/I just want to be friends/think he’s too old? He doesn’t actually know I’m very close to his age.
- He is and because of the fact we met through the institution he won’t contact me?
- He was interested but has changed his mind?
My options are to visit one of the other institutions he works at - he showed me a file of the things he is working on for a program he is developing there; or go back to the original institution, though I feel this latter would be a bad move given what I’d already said about returning. As regards the former, I don’t want to make a fool of myself if this thread draws the consensus that it would be. It’s a major institution though and he knows I regularly visit ones of that type, so I have a legitimate reason to be there, if only once.
One other slight thing that concerned me is that he doesn’t ask me too much about myself; I don’t know whether that was again self protective on his behalf, or that I talk about myself quite a lot anyway 
. Or that he didn’t want to be intrusive, which is a genuine possibility as one thing I like about him is that he has good boundaries, if that makes sense.
I always thought if a man likes you he will find a way to seek you out and spend more time with you. I am 50/50 as to whether he simply doesn’t like me enough to do that; or, he suspects me of ambivalence and seeking only friendship, and he doesn’t want to get hurt.
I suspect you all will have a clear reader of this!
Thank you for getting to the end of my saga!