How do i ward off unwanted attention while maintaining him as a friend?

Ok so there's this guy I know alrightishly well, he invites me out when our group of friend go to the pub and stuff and hes a lovely bloke, its safe to say we're friends, we're just not 'lets sit down and talk about our feelings' friends. recently I've become aware that he's kind of into me, he was selling these prints he made and he gave me one for free, and then the next day asked if we wanted to do something 'just me and him' to which i agreed, not twigging that he may have other ideas than just being friends. This guy is also quite standoffish with most girls, dosnt really want to get involved and is quick to warn off potential crushes, he only ever does what hes doing to me with the off girl he's really into... which I've only seen once. Since the day i agreed to do something with him i have received multiple invites on possible dates and the such, thing is though, i do not date, i do not have relationships, i like the single life. What confuses me is that we even had this very conversation, and I assured him that's simply how I felt, so the fact that he knows this and is still chasing me does seem a bit strange. So what I'm asking is how to get him to back off a bit with out offending him and making him embarrassed, I'm not great at frank conversations.

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