How to enforce more boundaries and stop feelings of loneliness

hello all, i am still in new york and took a few month break from dating (for context: 24, i work 6pm to 2am from home in digital news), after getting ghosted after sex with a guy on date 4. now after juggling helping my parents move and juggling that while working full time, its summer and i wanna try again. the thing is though, i’m having some low confidence issues and whenever something very minor doesn’t work out i want to take another break, when i don’t think i need to be so dramatic? if that makes sense.

i started talking to one guy off of a dating app, and we got flirty. i’ve been horny and stressed and the news cycle isn’t helping, so i was ok with a hookup. this guy wasn’t really showing interest in getting to know me as a person and clearly just wanted to talk about what sexual things i was into so i’m like ok whatever. he was VERY insistent on coming over while i was working and i kept saying no (red flag #2). i finally realized ok, i have some free will here and will not have many work calls. i warned him i will HAVE to check slack and mitigate other things and he emphasized he didn’t care. he very much was thinking with his penis and i was like ok sure lets try this. i did tell him many times i was looking for something more than sex and he said he did too. which makes no sense tbh.

he ubered over and well. we didn’t even end up having sex. it was just me performing oral on him and then he finished. i had to handle some work stuff after and figured we could at least do round 2 since he talked alllll this game and seemed very excited. this was dumb of me to bank on. he asked me if he could take a phone call after being on his phone while i was handling a small work thing on my laptop, and i said sure go ahead. i heard him on the phone and couldn’t make out who could be on the other end but he ended up telling me his roommate got locked out and he had to go back and let him in. and at this point he has only been here for 40 minutes. it just seemed like a horrible excuse. so i got a little upset obviously and said “thats ok, just if you wanted to leave ya know, you don’t have to make up an excuse. you can just go. i’m not keeping you here.” i got no pleasure out of our small hookup and only he did, and i was fine with doing that but i feel soooo dumb.

he told me his roommate does this a lot at around 9pm since thats when he gets back from work. he apologized but it seemed not super genuine, and he told me if he just wanted to leave he would have made that clear beforehand and he doesn’t like leaving after so quickly and i’m like hmmm ok yeah ok. i was just super skeptical. i just think if it was real he would have been a lot more apologetic. THEN he had the audacity to say “lets get a drink next time we do this” and “lets get together on a night you’re not working” and i’m like WHAT. you pushed for this! he admitted he did push this so that’s on him but it made me feel 100% more shameful and like this was on me. i walked him out and told him in the elevator that i just would hope he could be honest and say he just wants to go instead of doing this whole charade and he’s like “do you want casual?” and i’m like “??? what does this have to do with anything?”. anyways i’m upset with myself for expecting to get pleasure out of a spontaneous hookup.

i’m glad i stood up for myself instead of just being like “oh no problem! go help out your roommate!” bc i just knew it was fishy. i’ve had another guy pull this too after a hookup. a “friend” called and said she needed help getting her car jumped and i’m like “do you even know how to jump a car?” and he said no lol. i literally do not give off any crazy aura that these men can’t just be honest with me that they want to go.

the guy texted me once he got back that he is sorry again and he told his roommate that he f**ked up, and he had a “great time with me.” i replied normally and then deleted his number, but i don’t want to repeat this situation again. am i doing the right thing by speaking up for myself? or should i just not even show any type of emotion and just say bye right away? doesn’t help that i am isolated still with work and feel like i’m wasting my youth every night. wow. this was long. apologies. i’m joining a sports league in a month and have a fun vacation planned in two weeks, but i’m tired ya’ll.