Perspective needed - first date went well but I’m confused about his level of interest.
I’ve been talking to a guy for around 4 weeks. From the start he was consistent, messaging daily, wanting to meet, and making effort to arrange seeing me. He lives a distance away, so meeting wasn’t a small effort and I appreciated him coming my way.
The date happened yesterday and we went for a little excursion to the seaside. I brought bits for us, as I knew we will be out a while.
In person there was chemistry. He was very affectionate, lots of hugging, holding hands, kissing, joking, and we both seemed very relaxed around each other. We could sit quietly together without it feeling awkward (or at least I did albeit he said he was relaxed too).
My uncertainty is that he seemed much more physically expressive than verbally curious. He does ask about me via messages or calls, and keeps conversations going, but he didn’t ask many deeper follow-up questions about me or my life, which made me wonder whether he was genuinely trying to get to know me. We did speak a fair bit prior to meeting so we did cover basic compatibilities but I seem to be asking thoughtful questions and really wanting to get to know him, whereas I'm not sure how many of those he initiated albeit we have a good laugh and conversation continues. I did take a slight step back to let him lead during the date whilst remaining warm and playful.
He followed through after the date with confirming hr get home and thanked me for bringing bits and hugs. What he hasn’t said is anything like “I enjoyed seeing you,” or “I’d like to see you again." As of yet. We just resumed normal day to day conversation.
From a male perspective, would you read this as a guy who’s clearly interested but just not very verbal, or as someone who enjoyed the physical side but may not necessarily want to take it further? Usually I can tell straight away but over here I am unsure as he ticked a lot of my boxes on paper, I felt relaxed with him and found him attractive but the lack of curiosity is confusing me. 1st date jitters or just not that interested?