Friendship turned awkward because of unreciprocated feelings, advice?

I 24f have a friend 24m (A) who I wasn't super close to but we were becoming closer throughout December-February. We saw each other at mutual group hangouts and I always felt comfortable talking to him and vice versa, he would open up and stuff a lot.

at a couple points, I had a small feeling that he might be into me but wasn't sure and ignored it

In January, I met a guy (L) at a friend's party who is quite close with my friend A, and I developed a crush on him, and I think it's mutual. On our second time meeting, L and I hit it off and others seemed to notice, including A. L had held my hand briefly to cross the "icy" road, and A apparently saw it and then started making passive aggressive "jokes" and comments about it to L. My other friend later on told me that A seemed to notice that L and I were hitting it off that night.

Me and A and 2 others went to a movie one day like a week later and because A and I live nearby, we took the train together, and I noticed he put his hand on my back for a second, and I stiffened up because I felt awkward.

Fast forward 3 weeks, A had a birthday party and L was there and we hit it off again, and we were dancing n vibing together and he had his arm around me, and he held my hand and he bought me a drink (nothing major but this was our third time meeting so to me it was pleasant). A came up to me at some point and said "so you and L huh?" and mentioned that he noticed a vibe when I asked him why he had asked. He seemed fine though.

But next time me and A saw each other at a mutual hangout, he just seemed... off. his body language was awkward and closed off, and our conversation was kept brief. Maybe I'm overanalyzing.

I bumped into him on the street when walking with 2 girl friends and I invited him to an event. He told me to text him about it, so I did later and he was asking about my friends and said "one of them had a nice smile". my friends both have boyfriends, so I responded "yes they are gorgeous" and he said "I was hinting at something" so I broke the news.

I saw him again at another bday a few days ago, and brought up the festival to remind him. He said "is there anyone going that I'd be interested in?" and I misinterpreted the question at first so I said, "there are 8 people going but you don't know any of them, but I invited a couple of mutual friends", and he repeated his question, emphasizing the word "interested" and I hesitated because the people going are either men or women who are in relationships. Before these past interactions, he has never acted off or talked to me about interest in other women.

Also these interactions have all had a passive aggressive tone, different to how he normally spoke to me.

I am not offended by that necessarily, but moreso just bummed that he seems to only interact with me now on the basis that I can find a girl for him. I also feel slightly bummed that his interest in our friendship was apparently only based on that he may have liked me and now that he realizes it's not reciprocated, his attitude has changed, while he still has other girl friends that he treats the exact same way as he always has.

I just need advice in general and on a few things:

do I invite him to the festival, especially considering I don't have a match for him?

and how do I proceed with this friendship seeing that he seems to be awkward now?

do I give it time, do I give up? I really appreciated him as a friend. Should I even bother to invite him to things with fewer people or does that come across weird now? I don't know what to do lol