My (25F) best friend (24M) proposed to me. I’m confused and mortified. Where can we go from here?

TLDR: My best friend off 2 years seems to think we’re in a relationship and decided to publicly propose to me. I have no idea what to do.

Frankly I’m still in shock that this happened so this might be all over the place. Bear with me. All fake names etc etc.

Jordan and I met in University two years ago. We both started at the same time and because of our ages we were both considered ‘mature’ students. So we quickly became firm friends as we shared a dorm and we’d joke around together about us being old enough to be considered ‘mature’ in our early 20’s. We weren’t on the same course, but given we lived together, we would hang out pretty much all the time whenever we didn’t have a lecture. We joined a bunch of societies together, went drinking every weekend together, etc etc. It was a pretty sweet gig because it meant we were at least never alone. Obviously we made other friends, both alone and together, but we were always each other’s #1 at the end of the day.

At the moment we’re on spring holidays for Easter. And while we haven’t hung out constantly, we decided to make plans to visit each other’s hometowns, because we’re from very starkly different places. Today, we went to mine. Mine is a big city central.

This morning we went there and were wandering down the streets, doing some sightseeing, because he’s never been. There’s typically a lot of street sellers here, trying to sell you everything from hotdogs to fluffy pokemon hats. I decided I wanted to get a caricature done. I’ve never had one and I thought it would be funny to get and hang over my bed when we got back for term. I asked Jordan if he wanted to get in and he refused. No worries, so I sat down to get it done. They don’t take very long, 5/10 ish minutes, so I stayed looked straight forward at the artist the entire time. He finished the caricature, I loved it. So obviously I turn to show it properly to Jordan.

When I turn though I literally don’t even know what to say. He’s down on one knee holding up a ring box. I don’t even really know what he said, if he did the whole like proposal speech thing because I was so confused, I was barely paying attention. Remember again, this is a super busy tourist city, so this has drawn a mini crowd now, coming over to cheer us on.

I couldn’t help but burst into laughter. To be honest, I thought this was some kind of odd prank type thing. We never HAVE been ‘prankster’ types or whatever but I couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation. So I just laughed and laughed and laughed. Until I looked at Jordan and he looked genuinely heartbroken. So obviously I asked him something along the lines of ‘You’re not being serious?’. This is the only thing I remember him saying. He shut the box, stood up, shrugged and said ‘I guess not anymore’. And walked off.

This left me standing pretty awkwardly in this gathered crowd of people, a lot of who were giving me dirty looks, which made me incredibly uncomfortable.

The plan was to meet back up a hotel that we had booked rooms next door to one another. So I figure that’s where he’s going and head back that way. But he’s not there. So I wait and I wait, and he still doesn’t return.

I text him out of concern, this was at 1:15pm (it’s currently 6:20pm as I’m writing this) just asking if he’s okay. He responds with a LONG message back (which I would post, because it’s an odd read, but I won’t out of respect for his privacy), in which he basically accuses me of leading him on, asking why I didn’t ’break up with him sooner’, saying I had ‘publicly humiliated’ him and that he ‘thought I loved him the same way’ and that he felt our ‘relationship was strong enough to consider taking the next step’. Now this is completely out of left field. I literally have got no idea where in the world he’s got this idea from. The closest we’ve ever physically been is a hug hello and goodbye. I’ve never even jokingly flirted with him (for exactly this reason, I’ve had too many friendships collapse because they can’t tell the difference between serious interesting and joking banter in friendships, so I’ve been extra careful to not). We’ve never kissed, never been on a date, never had sex. I do not find him physically attractive and I wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with him.

I don’t understand where on Earth he’s got this idea that we are. This isn’t something he’s ever bought up before this and I’m genuinely bewildered.

He hasn’t returned to the hotel yet, I periodically knock to check, and I’ve been listening out for him walking up the hallway or anything. Nothing. I haven’t responded to his long paragraph because honestly? I don’t know how to.

I’m just so stunned and taken aback that I genuinely have no idea where to go from here or what to do.

I haven’t told anyone I know in person yet, mostly because I don’t want to bring this up to people who know Jordan. So here I am turning to strangers on reddit instead. What in the world do I do ?