Should I risk and ask her out?

[GeorgeJJ]

Hello, I'd like to thanks you in advance for reading this. I will try to provide enough information for you to understand the situation. So lets get to it. I'm not gonna go into details, but for various reasons I never had time for dating, till now. I'm turning 20 in few month and there is a person I'm interested in. I'm an art student. There is this girl in my class that I've shown interest from day one. Here's a short description. She's nice, friendly, talented, smart, beautiful and she really is the best student in our class, (second best being me of course ). There are 16 students in my class and only tree boys including me, but others guys are barely present. I'm viewed as nice, funny, smart, talented and gentlemanlike person. I'm not making these up btw, I've been told by others and I also know what my strong personality traits are. I'm the type of guy who is very open and fun when hanging out with close friends, but don't do much around people I don't know well, and I don't like most people anyway. My looks are probably slightly higher that average, I'm not fat or ugly but I'm no model. However I did stat working out so that might boost my condense a bit. Anyway the reason I'm stating all this about me is because this will give you an idea of how I act all day in class with 13 other girls. Yea I mostly spend time being quite, listening to podcasts on my phone. But this doesn't mean I don't show myself off from time to time, say something funny that makes everyone laugh or act cool when being in the center of attention. Lets talk about how close our relationship is at this point. We are friends but we are not too close, obviously she hangs out with her girlfriends and I can't just jump in as a third wheel, I'm just not that type of guy. But hey, we sculpted each other once, that's probably something most couples have never done before. Don't get any funny ideas, it was an assignment for sculpting class, and on that day we happen to sit next to each other. So we posed and sculpted each other, fully closed btw, just thought I should mention that. But on a serious note, I should mention one awesome day few weeks ago. So I went to Academy, and when I got there I noticed that me and her were the only two people from our class present. No one else showed up for the whole day. Sometimes life gives me these great opportunities. So I sat next to her in the hallway were she was waiting for the class, and I decided to start the conversation. We started talking about our grades and such, but later we pretty much covered every subject you could talk about on a first date. It was great we talked about for over an hour in total, even when the class started the professor had to leave for a minute, and we made fun of him and talk about movies and Oscars (yea this happened on the next day of academy awards ceremony). It really was great she laughed at all my jokes and we had a great time. We generally share many moments trough out the day. For example today she asked me to show my assignment for the class and she complimented me. Later I was sitting in art class drawing, and she approached me from behind, put her hands on my solders and said "nice work". One time she even complimented my hair cut, saying that it suited me. Now these can be simple friendly gestures and it's normal, but are they really? I lost faith in my ability to notice signals few years ago. There was this girls who was obviously flirting with me for weeks, and when I asked her out she told me that she had a boyfriend. Good thing I barely saw her from that point. Anyway lets go back to the point. I think she's aware of my personality traits and she likes them, but I don't know if she likes me enough to date me. And that's where the problem is, I don't know. If I risk and ask her out and she says no, I'll have to spend next 2 years in awkwardness, then her friends might find out, and being the only guy in class might turn into a bigger nightmare. She is worth taking the risk for, but there is a part of me that is almost sure that I will fail. How should I approach this? Also if you can give me some advice on how to act on a first date if I do decide to ask her out, considering that we already kinda had a date on that day, that would be great.

[surfhb]

Why would it be awkward? Only if you let it......you won't say no anyway

The risk vs gains in this situation is pretty much in your favor

[smackie9]

Having an interest and liking someone are two different things. You can't really tell if you like someone until you spend time alone together, getting to know one another, and that's why there is a need to go out on dates. Just because someone goes out on a date with you, doesn't mean they like you, they may just have an interest in you. So it is best to not invest any feelings unless things progress (more dates). First step, don't make a big deal about it, just casually ask her if she would like to grab a coffee or a slice of pizza with you after class. Keep it simple and casual.

[GeorgeJJ]

I've known her for 2 years, so I'm past the point of just being interested, I do like her. And I do like the casual approach. Thanks