This is going to be kind of long and complicated but bear with me because I am very confused about the situation.
So I have this friend, I've been friends with him for a little over three years now and over that period of time, he's seemed to be kind of obsessive and I wasn't 100% comfortable with his behaviour. At first, he didn't really bother me that much, I found him a little weird but we had the same sort of sense of humour and we formed a very strong friendship.
I started getting uncomfortable with his behaviour about 3 months into the friendship when I got into a relationship with this guy. My friend started to act childish, started to 'like' the same things as me and making sly digs about me and my then boyfriend online and when I confronted him about it, he just said that he was talking about somebody else.
Fast forward three months on from then, I noticed one day that he was having a bit of a breakdown online so I asked what was up so he sent me a long e-mail back explaining that he had feelings for me but obviously I didn't feel the same way as I was in a relationship with someone else, so I just let him down gently and assumed that we could put the whole thing to bed and move on. Wrong. He continued to kick up a fuss by insisting that we were perfect for each other and that me and that my then boyfriend was an idiot, this naturally prompted me to fall out with him and we didn't talk for a month or so.
After I split up with my boyfriend, we resumed our friendship and everything seemed to be as normal for about a year. Things really started to get bizarre when we both started uni; I started liking someone from uni and he, for some strange reason, figured this out despite the fact that we went to different uni's and I never really spoke about my feelings for this person to anyone, especially since I knew he didn't like me back. So again, my friend started with the sly digs online but I just ignored them since I couldn't be bothered falling out with him again. A couple of months down the line, the person I liked got into a relationship with someone else which I was kind of gutted about but I got over it pretty quickly but my friend started buying me all these extravagant gifts (I realise that accepting them was wrong but he always put me in a position where I couldn't refuse them). Anyway, the gift giving got to a stage where it was too ridiculous to not get suspicious about it so I explained to him that I didn't like him in that way and you just can't buy my feelings, especially since he was in the process of dropping out of uni and didn't have a job but he insisted that he did it because he wanted to cheer him up. Obviously, I didn't buy it since there is a difference between just cheering a friend up and getting them expensive stuff.
Fast forward to the summer of last year, we were both on a night out and I got very drunk and hooked up with another person, he then stormed out of the club and wouldn't return my calls for the next three days. Finally, after a while he stopped giving me the silent treatment and told me that he was in love with me and again, I explained to him that I wasn't interested and that time, I decided that I should keep my distance for a while because I just felt that as long as I was in contact with him he would want something more. Unfortunately, we're in the same circle of friends so avoiding each other was difficult so we started talking again and he started seeing someone else and hanging out with other people so we saw each other a lot less. About 2 months ago, he started messaging me A LOT on Facebook, it was like 6/7/8 times a day and I told to calm it down because I found it overbearing but his response was that he did it because we hardly ever see each other but obviously, it was difficult for me because I had a lot on in uni and stuff so I just told him that.
Right now, we hardly talk as much. He seems to be focusing his attention more on someone else in the new group of friends he has but whenever he gets in touch with me it's usually something that is likely to provoke a reaction from me like an inappropriate comment about me or trying to start an argument. I never really take the bait because I know that's what he wants.
I know I probably should have cut all ties with him a long time ago, especially since it's gotten to a point where I can't cut ties with him. Do you think that I should be wary of his behaviour? or is it just a serious case of nice guy syndrome? I'm seriously confused right, please help