Long term poster, temp account for embarrassment. Naice ham.
To cut a long story short, I’ve fallen for a very shy man and can’t work out how to tell him I like him, please tell me how!
Backstory: After a long relationship of 8 yrs plus that ended with me finding my-ex's multiple infidelities and then over a year single, I’ve fallen for a guy that I met 12+ months ago on OLD. He’s smart, gorgeous and very shy. He suspects he’s on the spectrum, and I agree. He doesn’t seem to have much of a relationship history. I sense that he likes me, we text over 30 times a day and meet regularly for what are basically dates, but he’s never made a move and I don’t think he will. I’m in my late 30’s and other options are narrow, plus I don’t really want to date anyone else! .
After two long relationships previously ending with rejection then cheating, my confidence in my own attractiveness is very low. I’m not ugly; I’m professionally successful and have a lot of friends – I’m alright at most aspects of my life but I just can’t take another romantic blow. I’m in therapy and trying to work on that, but I’ve always been someone who prefers a relationship to casual stuff and the physical loneliness is intense. I’d love to open the door to a relationship with this guy if he does like me, but the door is jammed.
The best and easiest thing to do is to just tell him how I feel, but please believe me I’ve psyched myself up to do it tens of times and I just can’t bring myself to. He’s teetotal, so I can’t take him out and let the wine do the magic. I could text him to tell him I like him more than just friends but that doesn’t feel right and the terror of waiting for a response would give me a meltdown!
I know I have to do it, that I’m overthinking it, but I’m stuck. Please help; what do I say?