I like this guy but don’t want to ruin our friendship.

I met this guy at uni just before lockdown. It was kinda a coincidence that we met and then a few weeks ago accommodation started moving people who stayed in halls around and now I’m in a flat next door to him.
So for about 2 months now we’ve been chatting and getting on really well and we go for a walk most evenings (2m apart) around campus. We chat about a lot and he asked a few weeks ago if I had a boyfriend and I said no, and he said he didn’t have a girlfriend. It was really casual how he dropped it into conversation so I don’t know whether he was just asking or “asking”.
It’s just so hard to try and work out if someone has feelings for you when you can’t go within 2m of them. He can’t obviously ask me on a date because everything’s shut and all normal body language stuff is gone because of social distancing.
I don’t want to ask him straight out if he likes me because I really like having him as a friend and even though I do have a bit of a crush on him, I don’t want to make it awkward between us especially since I have to live next door to him for the foreseeable future. But id also like to know if he does like me because it’s frustrating not knowing.

Reply 1

kingyii1997

So what exactly is your concern? Do you want him to be your boyfriend or just remain friend?

Reply 2

Anonymous #1

Original post by kingyii1997

So what exactly is your concern? Do you want him to be your boyfriend or just remain friend?

I’d like to know how I could find out if he likes me like I like him without full on asking him. I don’t want to actually straight out ask him because I don’t want to make it awkward between us and potentially ruin our friendship.

Reply 3

kingyii1997

Original post by Anonymous

So you actually want to date him right? But you are afraid that once he knows you like him things will be different right?

Reply 4

Anonymous #1

Original post by kingyii1997

So you actually want to date him right? But you are afraid that once he knows you like him things will be different right?

I want to date him, but I’m worried that if I straight out ask him without knowing if he likes me I’ll ruin our friendship which I really don’t want to do. It’s hard to tell if he likes me because all the normal things you pick up on like body language and proximity and stuff can’t happen because of social distancing.

Reply 5

SteveyStack

Original post by Anonymous

As a guy I wouldn’t be asking you that question ales I wanted to know whether you liked me. Maybe subtly mention you want to start seeing people again, but it’s tough as you don’t want him thinking he’s in the friend zone.

Reply 6

Anonymous #1

Original post by SteveyStack

I know, but this was a few weeks ago, maybe he’s changed his mind since then. It’s just so hard to tell when you can’t be physically near to someone. I don’t want to just ask him, because I’m happy to just be friends because he’s a great person and I don’t want to ruin that, but I also want to know if he has more than just friend feelings for me.

Reply 7

SteveyStack

Original post by Anonymous

As you can’t meet you could ask him something over text that’s quite upfront, like why did you ask if I was single a couple of weeks ago?

It’s quite upfront but doesn’t actually ask him out. If you want to know this may be a good way as his answer can steer your next choice.

As a general rule you only stop liking someone when not contacting them although this is a strange time