Is he ghosting me now?

We went on our first date, it went well and we kissed. He said he wants me to meet his friends sometime. That night he said we should meet up again after I’ve done my assessments as I’m kinda busy. The next few days he went quiet, said a few sentences but he’d message me first then just ignore me, I just assumed he’s not a big texter. Today I asked him if he’s free this week to meet up as he’s off work and told me he didn’t have plans last week. All of a sudden he’s told me ‘I’ve already got plans those days, maybe next week’ so I replied ‘okay, if you don’t want to meet up again that’s fine you can tell me’ and he ignored me so I’m assuming he has no intention of seeing me again as he only said ‘maybe next week’ and made no effort to respond to me. I’d rather he was honest. Some of my friends think he’s playing hard to get but I think he’s lost interest? Is he ghosting me or playing hard to get?