If you’re not into them, don’t keep them on standby like a backup charger.

Keeping someone half attached is comfortable for you and expensive for them. They are arranging hope around signals you send on purpose and do not intend to honour, and the vagueness that spares you an awkward moment is the same vagueness that keeps them waiting. Nobody is a reserve option. They are a person working with fewer facts than you have.

Work out where you actually stand and say it plainly, kindly, once. Then match your behaviour to the words, since words alone will not carry it while the pattern continues. It is a rough evening and a much better month.