Yes, perhaps I did dishonestly claim to not be attracted to her. However, while it partly was because I valued her friendship and wanted to maintain it, it was also because she genuinely believed she had led me on and felt terrible about it. And at that point it was still just a crush, it seemed a pretty harmless thing to do.Katatori-kun said:There is no such thing as a friend zone. There is a girl. She thinks of you as a friend. You dishonestly claimed to not be attracted to her in order to maintain a friendship with her.
and if you should be ashamed of anything, it's that you should be ashamed for. Not for being attracted, but for being dishonest with her. And potentially, with yourself.theparsonski said:but I convinced her that I no longer felt that way, and since then we've just become even better friends. Unfortunately, I think I may be now in love with her.
I've had more than one close, long-term friendship turn into a relationship. And though one of those crashed and burned, it did so for reasons that had nothing to do with us being friends. So there's no reason a friendship can't turn into something more. But both of you have to be into it, and you can't assume that she is into it just because she's not pining for anyone else at the moment.
So your options are to either to make a move to show your real feelings unambiguously and accept the consequences of that, (even if that means she thinks poorly of you because you misled her about your feelings), or not do anything and enjoy the friendship you have. But in either case you are not, have not been, and will not be "friend-zoned". Either she's attracted to you or she's not. Absolutely nothing will be gained by blaming her for her feelings.
EDIT: My "Show your feelings unambiguously" I do not mean declaring that you love her. Because I'm quite certain you don't, at least not in a romantic sense. And yeah, I fully acknowledge that pretending I know your feelings better than you do is an asshole thing to do, but let's be honest here: How can you know you love someone you've never dated or been involved with in any romantic way? How can you say you love them when you only know the public persona they project with friends? I think it's very likely when you say "love" what you actually mean is "really, really, really like".
And that's not a bad thing. You're attracted to her. That's not anything to be ashamed of. It doesn't need to be any grander than that.
Secondly, I never assumed that she was pining for me because she isn't into anybody else. In fact, I believe I stated the absolute opposite in a previous post - I am about 95% certain that she doesn't like me in that way. I have never blamed her for my feelings either!
Yes, perhaps I am wrong in saying that I 'love her' though. Possibly that is just me reverting to the Hollywood stereotype that when you can't get a girl off your mind and constantly want to be around her etc. then you are in love. Either way, I like her. A lot. But in the end, what you are saying is that the only way you can be in love with somebody is if you know what they are like when nobody is around. How about if I say that I love the girl that she is around me?
Yeah, I suppose you're right. I'm not ashamed of my feelings. Hell, if I thought we could still be as good friends as we are now if I told her, then I would freaking shout it off the rooftops, but alas, that cannot be.