I just don't know

@Sneaklight

In my experience the best relationships are built on strong friendships. Maybe have a deep and meaningful conversation with her. Tell her that you don’t want to lose the friendship but you want to take the risk of asking her out. Worst she can say is no and things just go on as they are. Sometimes you have to take a risk.

Hi @Jynx

Are you finishing up for the night now?

Around for a little longer @Oaktree - great to hear from you! How's things? Anything I can support you with tonight? 💜

Hi @Jynx

Happy to hear you are staying online for a bit. I am just doing a peer guide shift. I asked permission to do it a bit more casually, just fitting it in where I can rather than having set shifts. I have had a couple of weeks off as I had friends here from over east

Oh fantastic @Oaktree - and now I am paying a little more attention to where we are posting... 😅

Really appreciate you!

Hi @Sneaklight - totally understand this feeling. I have been in similar situations and it is not easy, that's for sure. My experiences have been from both sides of this, I will just share a little about what I've found -

As someone with feelings for a friend, not knowing how to ask them out - I spent waaaay too long holding my feelings in. This unfortunately resulted not only in me feeling quite a lot of yearning and repressing my desire, but also, my friends would actually notice the shift in my energy and how I was relating to them. I would obsess over the smallest details - like how long I'd be touching them or whether or not I ought to text them, etc. - and this subtle shift in me ended up making them feel kinda alienated. The friendships often ended up with us drifting apart or ending very suddenly because I was no longer being fully authentic in them. The one time I did actually confess my feelings, and was told that my feelings weren't returned, it took us some time to work through it. But in the end we had a really beautiful friendship that lasted about a decade (it ended due to factors that had nothing to do with unrequited love).

As someone who's had a friend confess their feelings to me - it was definitely awkward at first I won't lie about that. I did completely understand though, and I was firm in my boundaries, and we eventually worked through it. I know it was really hard on them, and sometimes I had to decline invitations or let them know if they'd made me feel uncomfortable. But we eventually got to a very good place, and they ended up finding a lovely partner.

These are just my experiences of course and not necessarily universal. But my experience says that hiding our feelings doesn't tend to work in our favour. You know yourself and the relationship best of course!

We will be here to support you, whether you decide to say something or not - no judgement either way. Best of luck 💜

@Sneaklight i had a great friend in my teens we did everything together. one night we kissed and that took us both by surprise but still nothing "happened" then my husband came on the seen and that was that our friendship ended and i moved on. ask your friend out on a date. it wont ruin the friendship what will is you doing nothing.