Why do I keep encountering this kind of bizarre behaviour on Dutch dating apps? Red pill influence, age, or just bad luck?

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I (30s) went on a couple of dates with a guy whose behaviour still makes very little sense to me. Before we met, he presented himself as extremely monogamous and relationship-oriented. I am monogamous too and made it very clear that I wasn't interested in multidating. He initially seemed to agree with that.

Then, once we actually started dating, he suddenly announced that he wanted to keep talking to and potentially dating other women because he didn't want to focus on the first person he liked. At the same time, he repeatedly told me that he liked me, continued talking to me for weeks, kept arranging dates and became upset when I interpreted his behaviour as a lack of attraction.

He also kept framing the situation as though I somehow had to convince him that I was good enough for him. That was the part I found particularly strange. If you genuinely have several attractive alternatives and aren't convinced by one particular woman, why spend weeks talking to her and arranging further dates? Why not simply date one of the supposedly more promising women?

The actual dates made this even more confusing. His behaviour was remarkably dysregulated. He cried during one date, behaved strangely and anxiously, seemed overwhelmed by fairly ordinary situations and at one point couldn't properly pay for what he had ordered.

There was an enormous discrepancy between the highly selective, desirable man he verbally presented himself as and the person sitting opposite me, who seemed barely able to regulate himself. Yet instead of becoming more straightforward after these awkward moments, he seemed to become more invested in reminding me that he supposedly had other options and wasn't yet "convinced" by me.

He contradicted himself constantly. He described himself as deeply monogamous, but wanted to multidate. He said he liked me, but behaved as though expressing uncomplicated interest would somehow cost him status. He supposedly wasn't convinced by me, but continued investing time in talking to me and meeting me. When I interpreted all this as meaning he simply wasn't attracted to me, he didn't seem happy with that interpretation either.

That is what I still don't understand. If somebody genuinely isn't interested, rejection is extremely easy. You say, "Thanks, but I don't think we're compatible," and disappear from each other's lives. You don't spend weeks keeping someone engaged while repeatedly reminding her that she hasn't quite passed your assessment yet.

The best analogy I can think of is being a vegan, voluntarily going to a steakhouse, staring at the steak and then announcing: "Well, this steak hasn't convinced me to stop being vegan." Okay, but why are you in the steakhouse? Nobody required you to order the steak in the first place.

I've increasingly encountered milder versions of this dynamic on dating apps: men who seem to want women to audition for them, emphasise how many "options" they supposedly have, deliberately avoid straightforward enthusiasm and treat ordinary mutual dating as though commitment is some prize they control.

Sometimes it looks almost copied from red-pill or manosphere dating advice: never appear too interested, maintain abundance, make her invest, keep alternatives available and make her feel she has to earn exclusivity. But in practice some of these men don't come across as confident or abundant at all. They seem anxious, chaotic or insecure, which makes the performance even stranger.

So I'm curious what other people think is going on here. Is this kind of behaviour genuinely becoming more common because dating-app culture and red-pill content encourage people to manufacture scarcity and competition? Is it something I'm encountering more because of my age bracket? Or have I simply had unusually bad luck and repeatedly encountered emotionally dysregulated men?

And specifically, how would you interpret the behaviour of this particular guy? If he genuinely had plenty of alternatives and genuinely wasn't convinced by me, why keep talking to me and arranging dates instead of simply choosing one of those alternatives?