Hi everyone,
I have a friend who is part of my friendship group from university. We all graduated a few years ago and we are within a mixed group of friends who meet up every couple of months, and a couple of quizzes during lockdown. One of the guys in the group I felt I had chemistry with when I met him at university 2/3 years ago - we clicked instantly, we would tease each other and we had the sort of friendship where people would joke about us being a couple etc. I was in a relationship at the time, didn't act on anything and put it down to a little crush, which I ignored and we carried on being good friends and doing group things.
2 years pass... 5 months ago, my other relationship ended and I've took some time to heal and enjoy my own company. I've seen my university friends a couple of times recently and have started to have thoughts about the same guy. He's really lovely and we always get on really well when we meet up, I also find him really attractive. 6 of our group met up yesterday and we had a really nice time, us 2 were chatting a fair bit and he was really making me laugh. All completely innocent but really nice.
I am so out of the game here (it's been ages since I've been single!) and i have no idea how to try and take things a bit further. We probably won't meet up as a group for a couple of months now. The problem is, we don't exactly message much one-to-one, probably once or twice a month, so if I start texting quite a lot and striking conversation then I worry it'll look a bit weird and he will get annoyed especially if he doesn't feel the same. Plus annoyingly he's a blunt texter compared to real life, where he's so much chattier and friendlier. We've never met up just us two either so i feel it'd be weird if I asked. But we get on super well in the group setting. For all I know, he might see me as a best friend but I will never know unless I try right?
But how do I play this? I really don't want to come on strongly.
I know it sounds silly but any ideas of advice would be appreciated ☺️ TIA