This girl (F18 – Sophomore) and I (M20 – Junior) have been friends since last semester, & we’ve been jokingly flirting with each other for a while. When she got a bf I decided to not be as flirty out of respect, because I don’t like the idea of being a home-wrecker. However, she’s told me that her bf cheated and they ended it, she seems to be extremely happy that she’s out of that relationship. This was (i wanna say) 2 or 3 months ago. Since then she started to playfully flirt with me again and I matched the energy, this time the flirting was more than we did before, and the playfulness sometimes leans sexual, with both of us saying that we’d be down to have sex with each other. Based on the vibe of the convos this seems like “a joke but not a joke”…you know? I do always text first, but when I do it seems like she genuinely wants to talk to me.
TLDR; My friend playfully flirts with me, stopped when she got a bf, started again when she broke up. I has crush now.
How do I tell this girl that I actually want to be with her, without ruining our friendship?