feeling really betrayed and hurt by a close friend, trying to move on but still feeling awful and questioning things. what to do to make it stop?

will try to keep this short - feel like this may be a good sub for this post?

TL;DR: friend who had been acting very confusing came to visit me, we go to an event, he tries to leave me for another girl.

i had a close friend come to visit me for my birthday a month ago. i feel like this is an important detail - he invited himself over. we have been close for about 2 years now. everything was going well, my other friends liked him, we were having fun. i loved that he was there and i loved that he put in the effort to fly over. the next day is when it got bad. long story short, we go to a ball i had to put a ton of effort into getting him into (finding a ticket and some other logistics)...and he tries to leave me for another girl at the end. we were outside, he asked me to wait in the cold for him. i did, that's when he starts texting me he may leave with this girl he just met. don't know her, she was a friend of a friend and heard she turned him down.

my friend gently confronted him over almost leaving me. we leave, get back to my place and my guest wants to talk to me. he basically talks about me like i hung the moon, how amazing i am, how i'm worth worshipping (???), how highly he thinks of me, but how we are "just friends". i don't think that convo was doing what he thought it would. this was at 2 am, i had to work the next day, i was exhausted, and i was a bit tipsy, so i didn't properly express myself, just listened to him ramble.

this is where the 'history' in the title comes in. he was a very close friend of mine, always at my side. we do not live in the same country yet talked every day, he would send me random life updates about him and his family. it was nice. i'd asked him what he thought of me before because i unfortunately caught feelings, and he said he thinks of me as a friend. that's fine, it happens. however his actions said otherwise, i thought. all of my friends thought the same. he would be WAY over the top complimenting me ('worshipping'), joked about being my bf once, asked me what names i would name my children, would send me things that made him 'think of' me all the time, would get uneasy when i mentioned being around a male friend (this one gets me), sleep in my bed, talk about his family like he was setting me up to be in it (have his siblings follow me on socials but not other friends), lets me call him a nickname only his family does, wanted to go to paris with me for a week, there's prob more i'm forgetting but he blatantly gives me special treatment. my friends were surprised that we had never even kissed. i thought maybe he was afraid of commitment or didn't want to do long distance or something. out of context, our convos look like we're in something long-term. it felt like dating though it wasn’t official. 

he did apologize to me by leaving a letter at my apartment, which he told my friend about but not me...lol. trying to keep this short as possible. i have many mixed emotions. now i was not getting my hopes up given what he said about us being friends months ago. i was getting mixed signals before but they got 10x worse after he turned me down. if all of my friends think he's being confusing, i guess it's a sign he is. they'd tell me if i was delusional. i feel so sad. on a friendly level that he would just leave me on our last night together. also brokenhearted for other reasons. i feel so stupid for thinking he was just scared of commitment, and i feel used - he told my friend who confronted him he had a suspicion i was into him, and i feel hurt that he tried to pull this when he had that thought. i hadn't seen him in months before this. he said he sensed jealousy from me when i asked him what his new murky plans were, but i don't think that's fair because he gets uneasy when i mention hanging out with men. i just wanted to spend time with my friend. i appreciate his note, but wish he apologized to my face. next day and the day after he was texting me like nothing was wrong. my friend told him to offer me space. he obviously did not do that.

hurt and embarrassment aside...i feel so confused. i told him i need some distance for a month, we have not talked for 2 weeks now. def taking his word, but i'm so lost. why would he be giving me the "girlfriend treatment" (to quote a friend) and treating me like i'm so special just to do this? none of my friends can get a read on him. my male friends think he would've crashed out had i kissed some other guy but idk how true that is. he was never a player and i never suspected he'd be toying with my emotions but now i'm second-guessing him and that sucks because before he was a good friend. "gross" is another way to describe how i feel. he's never hurt me before until this.

there is a gap in my life because we would talk everyday. obviously not doing that now. i feel so betrayed and used and confused and sad. how do i stop questioning why he is the way he is? i want answers, though i won't get any. just very over the top. how do i stop feeling so awful? i know time helps, but it's often slow. i still want to be friends after our distance is up but it won't be the same. it is very hard for me to develop romantic feelings for people. if you read this, thank you.