I would interpret that as a
"Leave me alone I'm not interested"
Maybe it's just how I view things, but you realize every relationship ends in either break up or marriage? Like I'm engaged and 95% of my time with my partner is just casual hanging out. I would be distraught if I could only see them when were on a date.
You need to have a better conversation with him.

Actually ASUS started to sell N100 motherboards with the CPU soldered on for $120
That plus a jonsbo N2 or N3, a few extra pieces, and its a few hundred dollars cheaper than the Ugreen options. Sure it will probably run Truenas instead of Ugreens custom truenas or whatever its built on, but that extra $300 is another 24TB hard drive or a HexOS lifetime subscription.
There's also always the classic buy an old mid sized tower for $100 and slap two massive hard drives in it