To give a brief history, we (24M and 23F) go to graduate school together and have almost every class together, which has led to us being friends for close to a year now. For the past few months however, my feelings for her have kind of just erupted. I’m just so happy to see her in-person, I love how we depend on each other for school, and I do admire her a lot in terms of looks and ability. I have made it clear through my actions that I do like her, but I’ve never really said it clearly other than suggesting we go out together. And the for the past month, the dynamics between us, and the dynamics between her and our shared group in general has been really nice.

However, there’s so much blaring evidence against a potential relationship so I’ll list it out:

• She’s still hung up on her ex of two years. They broke up about 7 months ago when he left the country and has no plans on coming back. They still talk “casually”, but he called her about three times during class because she didn’t talk to him for more than a week. This was because he sent a video of him drinking with another girl, causing her to block him off. She also says that it’s hard to break off her connection because there’s nobody else that knows her like he does and vice versa. (I’d also like to note that she kind of doesn’t have any community or friends in the area we live in right now, so she is lonely)

• Says that she’s not ready to date.

• Only dates people of her same ethnicity/race because English is her 2nd language (both Asian but different ethnicity)

• Confides in me about her ex, so I am just a friend (and I’m dumb because I have told her that if she needs anybody that’ll listen to her, then I can do that)

Right now, my whole instinct is telling me to confess, but I recognize how selfish of a decision it is. If I were to be honest too, I’m confessing to be transparent with her and to set a boundary between us because I just can’t be the person that she confides into about her ex. Another reason is that I kinda just want her to be aware about my feelings as well, and recognize that there’s someone other than her ex who really wants to get to know her. I recognize the consequences though, that most likely we won’t be friends anymore, but I’m okay with that and whatever happens, happens. She is a valued classmate as well, and losing that sucks. It’s just that this is just such a selfish dump of emotions on an already vulnerable person who I’m kinda crazy about, that it hurts me a lot as well because in the past, I’ve been more of a non-selfish, keep the peace kind of person. I have talked to my friends in the group about it as well, and they told me,

“Thinking about us is just you creating more obstacles for yourself to confessing. If I saw someone everyday and couldn’t help but think that I like her, I would confess tbh. But idk if you’d wanna do that because of her ex.”

So I do feel encouraged that my friends are with me regardless of my decision. Does anybody have any insight, words of encouragement or discouragement? Thanks