lead (one) (on) a merry dance

To waste one's time or cause someone a great deal of confusion through deceitful, manipulative, or inexplicable behavior. You should have just said you weren't interested in investing from the beginning, rather than leading us on a merry dance for three weeks! If someone in whom you are uninterested is pursuing you romantically, do not lead them a merry dance—make your feelings clear from the get go.

If someone leads you a merry dance while you are trying to achieve something, they cause a lot of problems for you, often by doing something to trick you. They had led the Irish Government a merry dance for the last seven months. Note: You can also say that someone leads you a dance or leads you a merry chase. I began to court the lady who last year became my second wife. She led me quite a dance, but I never gave up. He was fast becoming a kind of cult figure, always leading the police a merry chase.