Sometimes it's not ego.
Sometimes it's not a game, or playing coy, or whatever it is you're used to. Some of us are just extremely socially awkward and don't know what the hell we're doing. Sometimes we're not even looking for anything, and it finds us anyways. And it kind of sucks, because life says hey, you want to be anonymous? Well, as ever, the punchline just arrived and the fight was thrown long before your arrival.
Hey, look, I liked you, or how you presented. But it also could have all been projection. I'm projecting, you're projecting, we're all quite a theater in here, eh? Gently, and calmly: I liked you, but I don't know you. There's more than a quarter million in a 20-mile radius. I know you found me. Heard a bit too much. But I couldn't be expected to interview ten thousand with the same initial, you know?