“And if what you wrote is accurate, then he asked you to be friends and not to date towards marriage, which is a huge difference.”
THAT is a very good point. And if you ask him, he will probably lie.
Even if you do date him, which would be a terrible idea, you should still have a shadchan. Even when girls date guys that they happened to have met, they can (and should) still have a shadchan as a go-between.