I don't know whether to take a little fall back or wait anymore with this guy

So I’ve been dating this guy for about a year and 4 months, I’m 20 he’s 22 – we’re not official. We don’t live together but we’re in the same city and he has a car, everything was really good at the start and there are good things I like about him. Recently we’ve got more distant and I’m just not sure if I should continue waiting for him to ask me out, or work through what we’ve got going on now.
I’m in the UK and covid rules are really tough here and he says we’re not together officially because he wants to make it really special (take me out of the country to ask me, spend a lot of time together afterwards etc). We’ve built a nice friendship at the foundation of our ‘romance’ and of course, after a year, I have an attachment to him. We basically do everything a couple does except having a title, I haven’t met his family and he hasn’t met mine though because I said I’m not doing all that unless I’m his girlfriend. I have so much love for him but I don’t think I’m ‘in love’? – at least I hope not because he hasn’t told me he loves me (says he ‘has’ love for me and he says he does not really know what ‘love’ is. The thing is he is not a romantic AT ALL and has been through trauma in his last romantic relationship which means we haven’t had that ‘lovey dovey’ honeymoon period yet. He’s quite emotionally unavailable when it comes to deep intimacy and we don’t really talk that much about the future and what we want to do, just vibes basically and talking to each other every day. I’ve had conversations asking for some reassurance as we are not together and he is not one to always tell me how he feels, he shows me he likes me through his actions. He doesn’t really ‘get’ the importance of love languages and his parents are not romantically affectionate towards each other at all, so his idea of ‘romance’ is quite different to mine.
The mental toll of his very boring delivery job (that he started as a means to get money in covid, as he’s just graduated and it’s hard to get grad jobs atm) along with covid has made him more tired and depressed I think. We do not spend as much time with each other as we used to, and we aren’t as affectionate with each other as well, I think it may because he’s feeling a little down and the covid situation HAS been putting a little strain on us. I want more closeness in the relationship but I don’t know if he’s in the position to give me that. I don’t want to overreact and leave him or do any ‘mean tactics’ when he’s in this mental state. I don’t know if it is worth the effort to try to teach him how to be romantic and keep pushing to try and get my romantic needs met when he says I already give him all of his.
I just don’t know what to do at this point – he’s hanging the promise of us being together in the future in front of my face which is why I’m staying (so I can get that honeymoon intimacy phase), but I just feel silly sometimes trying to work on our ‘issues’ when we’re not even in a relationship. We’ve taken things extreeeeemeeelyyyy slow emotion-wise (not sexually which I regret a little as I could have used that to get in a relationship looking back I probably could have) I want to take a step back from this situation for my mental health as I am still technically single. I don’t want to lose him permanently but I just think our timing has been too slow and I just want more emotional closeness and romance. There are so many positives about him that I really admire and I have not met anyone like him, he’s taught me so much in such a short time – he’s a real 80 in the 80/20 theory. But I want to take back being single a little bit especially when we’re not together, how do I go about it without losing him completely – or show him that I’m serious about him losing me if he doesn’t work through his intimacy blocks?