am i overthinking our classmate relationship?
[long post ahead, my apologies!]
Hi! I'm a 20 year old student who has just recently entered a private university. My class size is relatively tiny, with only 8 people making up the class, and consisting of 2 guys and 6 girls.
(some background)
Previously in my 13 years of schooling, the past 10 years i was studying in an all girls' school, and for the recent 3, had been in a mixed school. Having grown up surrounded by girls and having a poor self-esteem, it was very tough for me to get close to boys in the mixed school, but i managed to scrape by having only females in my immediate group of friends. However, my diploma has forced me into learning how to adapt and become more sociable, and now here we are.
In my class there is this 23 year old guy I have mixed feelings about. In the first 2 days, we barely acknowledged each other in class. However, after being forced to interact once in a lesson, he began to start teasing me. For example, as i'm usually the earliest in class, i tend to go for (obviously) the rare seats with the power sockets. He would later then burst into class, spot me, and go, "(name)!!! WHY DID YOU TAKE MY SEAT AGAIN??" and as the days went by, started to plop himself in the seats either beside or near me, saying he wants to use the sockets as well. As mentioned, I went for the fake-it-till-you-make-it approach of bantering back to cover up my nervousness, and would usually tease him back. But upon giving up my socket, he would brush it off saying he didn't really need it!
I noticed he also started coming to me a lot with questions about class, even when I know he knows I wasn't paying attention in certain lessons. Tbh I feel that because i helped him with his questions, he was very enthusiastic about helping me as well, even when I didn't need it. For e.g., he'd often bring up how i can ask him for advice anytime, and once when my group had some issues with finding people for a project, the moment he heard he tried to pull in some connections to help us, and was about to help us redesign our posters and information when his groupmates got annoyed and stopped him since they had their own project to worry about as well. I actually told him not to worry about us as we'll figure something out and i didn't want him to compromise on his own project as well. As I'm a sensitive person, I tend to notice people's actions and emotions around me a little more accurately and frequently than many others. I did notice that whilst we aren't close enough to sit right beside each other yet, when he does sit with me his body tends to slant towards me, even if the teacher is the opposite way. Even when he's not sitting with me, say he's sitting two tables away, i sometimes notice his body slanted towards wherever I'm sitting. (again, might just be me overthinking haha). He also fidgets a lot with his cap or mimics my actions, such as when I'm shifting in my seat or stretching, his eyes will dart over and away again. This happens many times over the tiniest movement from me.
It's been about 6 weeks since we met, so I've gotten a lot more comfortable with my classmates, hence the many banters. I realised he likes to say my name a lot when he's talking to me. Many times, when I'm chatting with the others in the class, or discussing a group project he will call for me from the other side of the room to tell me something funny, or to ask a question. He even once interrupted a lecturer I was helping with the projecter, to ask me how to find an application on his macbook, and later interrupted my chat with a friend to ask me how to get rid of popup ads on his computer??? Recently, when he has to go off for his schedules or whatever, he will either yell my name and wave goodbye to me and whoever who was around me at that time, or come up to me to say goodbye.
He also tends to address me a lot in our class chat, even when I'm not part of the conversations. There was a couple of times where he would refer to my group (i'm not leading the team) as (name)'s group when he was asking us questions. On social media, he likes to comment a lot on my instagram stories, making a random comment almost everyday.
Also, he is not a very patient man. In the first 2 weeks of school, he used to bolt off after class, and we wouldn't realise he was missing till later. Now, even though most of the other girls in class take forever to do their makeup in the toilet and i'd normally wait for them outside so that we could walk to the bus stop together, he would hang around outside to chat with me, even though he's very jittery. I just found out last week that he has avoided speaking to our classmates when we were at the same bus stop, hiding himself in the crowd, and I only realised we took the same bus when he waved his hand in my face as we were boarding the bus. This was extremely strange as I knew he was taking a different route (via free shuttle and train) home a couple of weeks ago. He likes to scare me when I'm least expecting it, such as when I'm at the school convenience store buying a drink before class, he would sometimes see me and run up to me and smack my backpack or my shoulders.
Personally, I am confused as to why he feels the most comfortable with me out of all the other classmates. i have worked on a project with him only once, and my other classmates think he might have a small crush on this other girl in our class who is more forward and bold with the teasing (a lot of us like to tease him since he likes to seem so manly) and is in his main project group. The reason why I'm confused as to whether or not he likes her is because he's not like this with the other girls in my class, even his "crush".
I have a tendency to overthink my relationships with guys, and I personally believe all of this is just him feeling more comfortable around me as compared to most of our other classmates, and partially because of his own personality. However, I would like a few opinions to ease my mind as well. Any advice on what I should do will also be very much appreciated!! :D
TL;DT - i am in the process of developing a crush on my classmate who is sending out mixed signals, and i'm not sure if i'm overthinking or is there something there to work with.
