Long time lurker here. I'm fairly comfortable with the concepts of pick-up, but this one is a bit of a different situation. I would rather ask /r/relationships, but they'll give me the old "tell her how you feel" line.

The back story is important. Please read it!

I was out with my close friends about six months ago and this girl, G, showed up as a friend of a friend. We got along well, went for coffee a week or two later and hit it off. A cup of coffee turned into a 10 hour excursion. We ended up back at her place on her bed and, for reasons I don't want to get in to unless absolutely necessary, we mutually friend-zoned each other. It wasn't weird or awkward, but we both made it abundantly clear that nothing was going to happen. Fine.

Fast forward a month or so and we go to a sporting event together, as friends. She tells me that she's started dating a friend of mine. Cool, good for them. We ended up spending the day together and had a great time.

Another month later I arrange an outing for my close friends, among which she is now apart of. Nobody was able to make it out except her, so the two of us go out and have a good time. She tells me that she broke up with my friend. I did what any good friend would do, but didn't push for details, etc.

So at this point we see each other in group settings every couple of weeks. Very little communication between just the two of us, and definitely no date-like activities.

Fast-forward to last week. I go out with my friends and, of course, G is there. She doesn't drink and, due to a rough night earlier in the week, neither was I. We all had a great time, though G and I were chatting a lot more than usual because we were both sober. I got home pretty late and got a call from her regarding some bet we had made at the bar. Extremely out of character for her.

At the bar we had talked about how we're the only ones from our group of friends around for the holidays and we should do something, yadda yadda. A couple days later I get an email from her saying "lets watch a movie at your place. I'll bring popcorn." I'm reading this as an IOI for several reasons: we could watch it at her place (she has a roommate, I don't), there is someone else she could reasonably invite out, and we don't usually do stuff together.

My question is, how do I proceed? Normally I'd just kino-escalate, but there are several mitigating factors:

  • She is an extremely touchy-feely person anyways, so she likely wouldn't notice unless I made an overtly sexual move. I won't do that because:

  • She is within my social circle, which means there are potential consequences to my actions. I would rather avoid drama.

  • She told me a long time ago that, because she's so friendly and out-going, she's had male friends think she was flirting with them. This has lead to at least one shitty situation that I know of.

I think I'm going to take a verbal approach, but I need to somehow keep my frame. Something along the lines of (in a teasing, child-like manner) "I'm starting to think you have a crush on me." might work. It's not great, but I think it's alright because it's not a question, I can bust on her for being like a little a grade-schooler ([dripping with sarcasm] "awww you DO like me...that's SOOO cute..."), and I can easily get out of it if she says "no" (wow you ARE a flirt!).

Suggestions welcome!

Thanks for taking the time to read all of this.