Hello!

My favourite human and I have spent a ludicrous amount of time together when we had more free time - think 6-8 hours a day, past midnight and all that.

We did this primarily in 3 ways: Watch a show together, just hang out in VC and watch the other play a game or spend time with other friends at the same time, and finally playing a particular roleplaying game through our characters.

A few times I did initiate, and it did go well. When she initiated, it made me very happy.

However, I feel I should initiate more. Presently my strategy for hang-outs is simply to make myself "available" - join that game, sit alone in VC and all that. I create an open invite of being available without explicitly telling her "hey, let's spend today just you and me."

Grad school is restarting for me this autumn, and her own schooling is restarting as well. Relying on simple joining a VC or the game hoping the other bites (as much good-feels that brings in sense of desirability) may not work as well while we are busy people.

So I want to try and take initiative and ask her to hang out actively, the issue is...

To me, explicitly saying/asking is an implicit promise of "this activitiy will be well-worth your time, and you will not want to do other things" which is a very high bar with my low self-esteem. I am afraid of dragging her away from her friends as they do feel cooler than me and whatnot.

Does anyone relate and have advice.