Dude(43m) I’ve(32f) been seeing picks on me a lot, and tells me “When I stopped picking on you, that’s when you’ll know there’s a problem”

So, basically, I’ve been seeing a guy for about 7 weeks now… He’s a clinical psychologist, and I work in psych research (this is important within the context)… When we first started seeing each other, he was super sweet to me, like, very complimentary, very affirmative, and seemed genuinely interested in me. He’d constantly tell me how “impressive ” I am, and how he felt like what we had was effortless and nice.

However, over the last few weeks he’s become more critical of me. He makes weird comments about how I try too hard, how I care too much, and how I’m basically too optimistic. It’s bizarre because these were qualities he claimed to have enjoyed when we started dating… now it’s starting to feel like he doesn’t enjoy being around me, but when I bring that to his attention, he says I’m over thinking everything… and he’s told me “when I stop teasing, then you’ll know there’s a problem… things will have stopped being fun…”

When he said that, I was sort of caught off guard, because as two people in psych, we work with or at least are aware of, toxic relationship qualities and it just makes no sense to me that he would see this behavior as appropriate or funny… unless he’s a narcissist.

The pros: We have the best conversations, the best intimacy, and we have a lot in common. He’s been an incredible source of support for me while I’ve been transitioning into a really emotionally draining career.

I really hate the overgeneralization of narcissistic personality in our society… frankly, it’s overused, but… I’m actually starting to worry that I am, in fact, dating a narcissist and I keep telling myself “you would know for sure…” but he assures me that my anxiety is making it hard for me to just…have fun and relax.

I don’t know if I’m looking for real advice or just a space to vent and get some perspective… what do you guys think? Am I being paranoid? Or am I being manipulated?