So, there's this person who I made friends with in the autumn of '18, and we've been growing steadily closer until about two or three weeks ago when I realised my feelings towards her are growing decidedly flushed. I love her laugh, and her goofy smile. I love how she gets excited about fandom things and smiles at babies of any species. I like how she absently does ballet stretches when standing for any length of time. I love her sense of humour and how she watches me intently when I'm cooking because she wants to Learn The Secrets. I've got it bad, and I really, really don't want to fuck this up. I confessed to her the other night, but while I wasn't turned down, she's been exactly one long-term relationship ever and it was with an aro-ace dude who basically just married her as a favour to a friend (she's American who wanted to live here in the UK) , and she said she feels super inexperienced in all like, actual two-way romantic dating stuff. For that matter, all of my previous romance attempts have ended very badly, and I will die if I lose her friendship just because I wanted to take it to the next level and I fucked up somehow and we soured on each other, I'll die. So yeah, any serious sensible advice would be appreciated especially from those of you out there in long-term relationships - how do you make it work??? How did you meet?? How did it start? Other people are so exhausting and complicated, there's a reason I haven't dated recently, I'm so terrified if fucking this up and losing her D: Plz to halp