Ok here is the deal:
When I began to attend high school in grade 10, I met this girl that I really, really liked. Let's admit it she was smoking hot and that was probably the reason for my initial attraction, since I didn't know her yet. Guess you could call it a crush at that point.
Anyway I was in grade 10 and pretty immature especially around girls, so to make a long story short I didn't really even let her know I liked her, but she definitely didn't like me. In fact she avoided me whenever she could. This in turn kinda pissed me off and so I wasn't very nice to her either (wrong move, I know).
We both had a mutual friend (a really good friend) who eventually got us to be able to tolerate each other. This was also the year of the Flames run to the finals, so in about February or so down the stretch run we discovered that the other was a HUGE Flames fan and well, from there our friendship blossomed. Now four years later, we are practically best friends. We do pretty much everything together, but there is no romantic angle to it (think brother-sister) and we are not even friends with benefits. For the most part, I've been able to put aside my romantic attraction to her, since she has pretty much made it clear that she has no ulterior interest. We haven't discussed it explicitly of course but obviously there's nothing in her behaviour that would make me think anything's changed (why would it) and so I've been able to put it aside and be happy having her as a best friend. We've both dated others in the past couple years, but are both currently single.
And so just now I've kinda decided that since she basically has every trait that I look for in a girl (not just looks, I'm not only that kind of guy). My old high-school attraction to her has returned with a vengeance. It's also one of those things where I've decided that simply ignoring your feelings and putting them aside, the direction I've taken for the last four years, is something that has to stop. I would totally regret not asking her out later in on life as she is just an amazing girl (though I am only 19 and really haven't met any of those once-in-a-lifetime chicks yet).
My question(s):
-Is it even possible to get out of this "Friend Zone" in this case? I figure maybe with a couple "real" dates she could eventually become attracted to me, but I am pretty much positive that she has no romantic interest in me at this point.
-How do I go about asking her out? Obviously I see it being a very awkward situation. Do I need to drop some hints about my feelings before I do this (i don't want to creep her out and just out of the blue, ask her out)? If so, how do I go about dropping these hints (since I flirt with her quite often and obviously its in a joking way, so she'll probably think I'm kidding around and won't take me seriously)?
-Would our friendship be affected if i asked her out and she declined? Obviously with everyone its different, but in your experiences has the friendship been affected in any way? I wouldn't be heartbroken if she shot me down and would still see her as the same best friend, but would she feel the same way? She is easily embarrassed by awkward situations.
I call on my fellow CPers: please help!!!!!!! I will be away on vacation for three weeks starting tomorrow which gives me time to think about all this and my course of action, but when I get back I'd really appreciate it if I saw some helpful tips from all you Dr. Phils
Arlo