Not sure if this is exactly allowed here since we aren't in a relationship, but it's the only place I could think to post this.

I (27/M) have fallen pretty hard for a friend (31/F) who I've just really I guess actually met a few weeks ago. Kind of. It's a confusing situation.

For the past say... four years or so, I've been friends with a couple(nothing weird, I promise). They live a few hours from me, same time zone even, so we get to hang out on games a lot. Over the years we've played tons of games together and have become great friends.

On one of the games we all play together, we're in a private guild together. One they made for themselves and their friends. That's how I met her, the one this story is about. She's like... best friends with the wife of the couple irl, and I've known her on a kinda acquaintances level for a few years now. Friends of a friend who are friendly to each other, you know?

Recently I've started playing a game that neither of my friends are really into, but the friend of a friend was really into it. So my friend was telling her friend about me trying it out and we ended up hanging out on that game together. We had been playing together and chatting on Discord when not playing for like three weeks, and at that point I had realized... I think I like her.

I was having tons of fun hanging out with her, we got along super well, we had pretty similar interests, similar senses of humor, we talked a lot. I mean, one weekend we spent probably upwards of 12 hours hanging out together on the game over the weekend. I was feeling those butterflies in my guts. Butterflies I hadn't felt for years.

Until one night. I'm playing something with the couple friend(the wife) and she just flat out asks me if I have a crush. Apparently they were talking and I guess I was kinda giving vibes. I admitted it because I trusted her, she's been my friend for four years. She told me that the new friend isn't really wanting to date right now due to personal reasons.

I understood that. I still understand that. I'm fine with it, but it still hurts like hell to know any effort I give isn't gonna do anything. I kinda broke down. Cried my eyes out for a while, drank(I know, bad. I don't even like drinking...) and just hated myself for a few days. Wished I could rip the part of me that felt affection and romance out and just forget any of the feelings happened.

After my self loathing binge, and when I finally realized the other person in this situation was stressed out too, I stopped being so angry and sad. Unfortunately, it seemed like my new crush was still kinda stressed, cause we hadn't talked nearly as much as before and she was seemingly avoiding me almost. I didn't blame her.

Few days ago, I'm playing a game with the one mutual friend of ours, and she asks me if I'm even sure it's actually real feelings or just a "puppy crush". So for the past few days I've been trying to figure out my feelings and trying to figure out how I would know if they're real affection and desire or just a childish crush developed because someone was nice to me.

So I guess the TL;DR is, how do I tell if I'm in..... like... with someone I met online a few weeks ago? Or if it's just a silly crush/obsession? I feel like I feel real things for her, but I don't know if it's just me being lonely and clinging to the first person who is nice.