I think I might be in love with my best friend

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Hello there, this is my first post on here. I hope I won't write too much and I hope someone can help me:

I am a 28 year old Aspie-girl, I study political science, I am very artsy and weird, people either love me or hate me, I don't have many friends and have a lot of burned bridges.
My best friend for the past two years is a Aspie-guy, he is 27, we study together and both met during first week of school and decided to be friends, because we are amongst the very few older people in our course. We share a lot of intellectual and artistic interests, as well as political views and humour.
So, first things first, my best friend and me both are, of course, not the most social people. In fact, I am probably at times even more social than he is. I actually have had phases where I go out a lot and meet a lot of new people, but most of these result in dysfunctional sexual relationships or I burn bridges quickly. My best friend has many short term girlfriends, never more than a few months. He is actually quite attractive and many girls like him. But he has trouble sticking with a girl for long, gets bored easily with them. He is more of a lone wolf, as they say, and he tends to say "he has me, he doesn't need a girlfriend".

Additionally, I should say that we are both in therapy and he has struggled also with depression a lot in recent years. My main struggle is my social anxiety.

He calls me his best friend and I call him my best friend, we sometimes call it even something close to a siblingship. We have keys to each others apartments, we go on vacation together once a year, we celebrate christmas, birthdays, New Years together.... We see each other about 4 out of 7 days a week.

When I had a long term boyfriend (which I did for the first 1,5 years of our friendship), our friendship was really platonic. However, recently we both have been single for a while and its noticeable that when we spend time together, we end up cuddling or he strokes my hair, kisses my forehead, we hold hands during watching a movie at home, those kind of things.
In the past, he has held me and comforted me when sad, he has seen me at my worst, I have seen him at his worst, I guess we have really opened our deepest souls to one another.

In the past weeks I have found that I actually enjoy being physically close to him a lot, so I have been a bit more initiating those sort of moments. The other night we watched a film and cuddled whilst watching it. Afterwards we looked at a few photos on his laptop and all of a sudden there was a folder with naked pictures of one of his ex girlfriends, a girl I also know and I liked them together as a couple very much (she even came to me a lot when she needed advice for their relationship. however, after their break up she moved away).
I felt really uncomfortable that he showed me these photos. Firstly, of course, because I realized the girl would not have liked it if he showed these very private photos of her to someone else (it was a photo of her butt and then a photo of her breasts). They were blurry phone photos the two had taken in bed. However, I know it was not right. He could not sense what he did was insensitive towards his ex and also to me in this situation (I like to say that his intent was NOT malicious). I told him I did not want to see these photos, and he just said "Oh, come on, you like girls too" (I am pansexual). Anyway, I told him that I needed to leave and put on my shoes and jacket and left his apartment. He was puzzled, texted me many times later wondering "what he did to offend me" and why I was being "moody". We fight every now and then, usually it has to do with him saying something insensitive or him being in a depressed mood. He lately has become better at sensing when this happens, and apologizes and shows remorse. However, he didn't realize in this moment that he did something wrong.
Secondly, I did not ONLY feel uncomfortable because of the invasion of this girl's privacy -- I also felt weird because I felt JEALOUSY. What I sensed was, I wanted to be the one who was naked with him. I wanted to be the one he adores, the one who can be close to him. When I realized that this is what I felt I was so overwhelmed.
Later that night I fell asleep thinking of what it would be like to kiss him. I know I feel a lot for him, I care so much about him. We only have each other, and most (not all, but most) of our other friendships in our school/city are shallow, we know each other really well and are always there for each other.

Another thing to mention: A few weeks ago I was on vacation and the 3 weeks I was gone he lived in my house and took care of my cats. He fell in love with them so much that last week he adopted a cat as well. I think seeing how much empathy and compassion he shows to the animal really also has made me feel more for him, as oftentimes these qualities are rather unseen in his behaviours, even though I know he is capable of showing them (otherwise I would not be his friend).

I really don't know what I should do because part of me wants to tell him how I feel but another part of me says to just wait it out, maybe it will go away again. I don't want to jeapordize our friendship because I value it so much.
But on the other hand, I talked to another good friend today and she told me she and her husband both think that my best friend likes me more than just a friend, as they believe they can sense it in his behaviors toward me when the four of us are hanging out together.

I really want to kiss him so badly and be close to him. He makes me feel safe, he makes me feel important, and I deeply care for him more than just a friend. But I know also that our friendship is soo, sooo great and I would never want to jeapordize it. Also, if I decide to tell him about my feelings, he might just say he doesn't feel the same? And that would be such a disappointment to me.

I would also like to add that my best friend is the first person in my life who told me that I AM THEIR best friend! I never had that before, ever! And he told me I am the most important person in his life.

I have not replied to his messages and have not figured out what I want to say.
I am in desperate need of some advice. I really hope someone can help.


annie

It sounds, at least, that he will not crush you if you share your feelings.

holy s**t great text wall of china!