Sounds to me like he is ok with being the sloppy second any time Joey finishes up with Dawson. It's quite sad for him. Albeit, Dawson was indeed still going after Joey after she was with Pacey but I think their reunion at the end of season 4 was more initiated by Joey anyway. The subsequent times DJ were on and off in the later seasons never had anything to do with Pacey anyway whereas whenever PJ got together, it was pretty much always shortly after something was going on between DJ.

So really, Joey turns out to be the smart one here. She managed to string them both along for so many years and in the end, she gets to keep the best of both worlds. In a real life situation, it is unrealistic. In a fictional tv show setting, they made it seem realistic by portraying that Joey was genuinely loved both and because of this she needs both in her life. Lol. I think Joey was quite clever in that she was able to manipulate the situation into having both men in her life. If she ended up with Dawson, she probably would've never seen Pacey again. If she ended with Pacey, she knew and we all knew that Dawson would still be at her beck and call. So by picking Pacey she get's both of them whereas by picking Dawson she only gets one and of course that's not enough . So Joey gets everything whilst Pacey and Dawson look like the biggest lap dog losers.