How to ask out someone without risking friendship?

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There is a friend of mine who I have known and been friends with for a total of four years. I have had a crush on her for three years and wish to ask her out albeit I don't know what exactly I would do differently if she accepted and became my girlfriend. We both are full time university students going to different universities in the city and only see one another sometimes on the bus or when a social event within are small group of 10 friends organize something. I want to ask her out if nothing else just to get it over with as I feel guilty having a crush on someone and being their friend but not telling them and since the last time prior to that(four years ago was the time of asking the prior person out) ended with them plainly rejecting me and indicating that they were able to notice for some time before hand which is something I want to avoid.

At the same time I feel guilty for wanting to get over and ask her out while making sure to be able to stay friends if she is not interested as it feels as though I am doing things half halfheartedly. If she says yes I don't have a present to give her or a date planned I just want to continue to be her friend and talking to her hopefully more than I currently do.

I really can't stand just staying in this position and given that my cousin almost told her when they first met I am becoming worried that if I express this to anyone outside of my immediate family I would be unable to plan for what could happen if she feels insulted by the way I went about trying to figure out something instead of simply asking her.

If anyone has advice it would be greatly appreciated, Thank you very much.

Does she show any interest in being more than friends?

Has anything happened to make you feel that she would be interested in more than friendship?

Do you contact each other often? Text? FB? Snapchat? Anything?

Does she date often? Talk to a lot of guys?

After three years it seems unlikely that it would be more than just friendship from her side. But without knowing anything about you or her, it's hard to judge. I would give the advice to avoid making any moves if she has not expressed any interest.

You also don't have to give someone a present if you ask them out, or start dating them. FYI.

I don't believe she has shown any obvious interest in being more than friends.

Nothing has really happened that makes me confident that she would be interested in more than friendship.

I usually see her twice a month or so and chat twice a month with her on facebook, we contact one another primarily through facebook and face to face talking though we do text on occasion.

As far as I am aware she has not dated someone before, outside of myself and two other guys in the group of friends I am not aware of if she has a lot of male friends.

If I was interested in someone (which isn't necessarily the same for everyone), I would contact them. I am not a social person, but if I am interested in them then I will talk to them.

Does she show an interest in you (your life, hobbies, whatever) during the conversations you do have?

I honestly don't believe she has romantic feelings for you, based on the minimal information supplied, but I don't know her.

I think you should look for more obvious behaviours that would give a better sense of her feelings before making a move to protect the friendship.

Before you take on this advice just know that i have never been in a relationship nor have i ever told anyone i like them, so most of this is just theory and other stuff that i have read around the place.

I have been in a very similar situation, but i saw her a lot more (same schools, same bus, same town) and less texting/messaging , it was for around 3-4yrs aswell only from about year 9-12. I never realy told her how i felt about her.

At first we seemed to get along well, but then i realised that I had feelings and that led me to beconing more awkward around her. Until late last year i had never heard of her having any serious relationships with anyone (though she did seem to a few years ago have something going on with a guy who is now more or less a "friend"of mine although no one ever seemed to mention it afterwards). I have heard her talk about how she has had to friend-zone a few guys, quite a few guys i am actually friends with seemed to have a crush on her too. I never found out if i was one of the guys so its probably them she was taling about. Although about a year into having feelings for her, i may have outed myself to her when messing her. We talked a bit but she was always slow to respond 2-4 days - mainly cause she prefers Skype to Facebook so wasn't on Facebook as much - i said "you're amazing" and replied something like "wise this one is". Anyways after that i started to get more awkward in my messages after hanging out with her again at school and gaining a false sense of confidence due to the fact of it being a face to face interaction, she didn't reply to any more of my messgaes and neither of us brought it up at school.

She just recently got a boyfriend and i failed to see the obvious signs that she was into him nefore he asked her out.

So to summerise, a few pointers:

1. You need to make sure that this is definitely what you want to do. Have you passed up any other possible relationships with other people (starting from a similar situation to that of your current one with this gril). I know it can be hard to have feelings for someone you viewed as a friend before the fact but you need to know if your feelings are serious. Which brings us to point 2

2. Do you think about her a lot when you aren't with her, do you have any pictures of her, do you have any particularly happy/fond memories of just the two of you or a small group of you and maybe 2 others doing something fun or interesting that you bith enjoyed. Chances are after 4 years you probably will. Also assuming you are an aspie it is likely for you to automatically have a least a few pictures of your crush . These are big signs that you have made up your mind about her.

3. Those memories I mentioned, use them to try and create more moments like them i.e. if you went on camping trip or went to see a play/other stage production or a movie, see if she would like to do somethibg similar again.

4.be the person that you know others like but also becomfortable with being self at the same time as don't try to reinvent yourself but also be willing to behave differently. Dont try to impress her by being someone you're not.

5. Don't become to confident to fast as that can lead to awkward situations particularly with messaging as it is hard to get your point across.


That's all i have to give you right now. Sorry for the length.

Cleverer Sauce
-I don't mind the length its really not long now for the questions
1. I have not passed up possible relationships with others however I have previously asked out two female friends. The first of whom as I asked them to a dance when I was 14 assumed that it was as friends and both accepted to dance with someone else as well as I ended up getting sick and could not attend the dance. The second was a friend that I met when I did a competitive sport and I became friends with her over the two years that she was on the sports team. While she herself was not on the spectrum she was an intovert who would very rarely speak unless the topic being discussed was in her primary interests. I asked her out the final year of my being on the team as she was leaving the country and her response was somewhat as follows "Sorry, I am not interested in that kind of a relationship with anyone at this time and even if I were I would not be interested in that kind of relationship with you" She went on to mention that she had assumed for a few months and that she was glad that I at least told her instead of just not saying anything. After moving out of the country she later on deleted her facebook so I currently have no way of contacting her.

2. I do think about her a decent amount of time even when I am not with her, I have one picture of her as she generally isn't interested in taking photographs. I have multiple extremely enjoyable memories with her primarily related to either conversations as well as some activities during the first year knowing her as we were in a class that had field trips together and happened to be in the same group for numerous events.

3. It would be kind of difficult to do so with anything other than conversations as she is busy throughout most of the summer and it would be difficult to set up something where the two of us are camping again.

4. I know that and I make sure to be the parts of myself I am to that group of friends when I am with her.

5. I make sure to message her sparingly and am currently focusing on trying to be aware of the schedule for a bunch of friends including her for activities that will occur later in the month.

HouseOfMadpeak

She shows some interest in how I am doing in school when we have discussions and seems to be most absorbed in conversations when we discuss religion, likely due to the fact that she is a practitioner of a form of Protestantism and I am an agnostic who's family is catholic which leads to her being quite amused by some of my misconceptions.