Is this worth pursuing or not?

Hi.

I could really use some advice right now… Sorry for the long post.

I am a woman who has recently gotten out of a rather long marriage.
“He” is a man who is single, but had a messy breakup with his girlfriend of several years a few months ago.

We work together and have had plenty of time to talk and interact as friends/collegues. During that time, it seemed that there were some feelings from both sides.

After numerous messages and discussions (where I opened up about my divorce and he opened up about his break-up, amongst other things), things came to a point where we both realised that this had somehow crossed the friendship line. So we had our first talk and tried to figure out what was happening and what we should do about it. We both decided that we wanted to see where this would go.

A couple of weeks passed, and my life became more settled. I started to become uncomfortable because in spite of that first talk, I didn’t really understand where we stood or what was supposed to happen next. So we had another talk.

He said that he really likes me, but there aren’t any massive feelings yet. He doesn’t find himself missing me like crazy when we’re apart. He thinks I’m a wonderful person, but he also has doubts that I might be on the rebound because of my long marriage. He’s not sure what he wants to do about us – whether we should still see where this goes, or if we should end things now before someone gets hurt. And he also feels that he needs his own time and space.

I’m not often interested in other people, so my feelings for him are unusual. That makes me curious to find out where this could lead. I don’t know if they are strong feelings – maybe because the divorce is still so recent, or because I’m afraid to even consider I might have stronger feelings because he has already said he doesn’t. I’m still emotionally quite raw. And I believe that right now, my priority should be “fixing” myself – we got married so young, and I literally threw myself into it 100%, and I never really learned to live for myself. I did everytihng because of, for and considering my husband. I don’t want to make those mistakes again.

I feel as though I am getting mixed signals from this man. He has moments of extreme tenderness… both physically and verbally. And in some of our discussions it’s clear that he is considering a future with the both of us. He called me once when he had been drinking a little, and he was very warm under the effects of alcohol anyway, talking about the future etc. At times he seems afraid I’m going to hurt him. And at other times he’s cooler, like when he’s saying there aren’t very strong feelings on his side yet, and he can’t make any promises.

I think I should believe what he has said in our discussions over my instincts, so I am now being very protective of myself. I am not allowing myself to expect anything from this “relationship”, if I can even call it that. But I’m still afraid I’m going to get hurt because of it. I already offered him a chance to get out of this and to be friends, because I thought maybe he wants to end it but is afraid of how I will react. But he couldn’t even decide that. So I don’t really know how to understand his behaviour.

What I would like to know is what all of you think of this situation. And whether you think it is better for me to end this now before someone gets hurt, or to see it through like I would want to.