Here is my current situation:
I've known the girl since the first year of secondary school, which is 7 years I think. During secondary school we always got on, and some people even suggested they think she likes me. Fast forward to beginning of this year, where me and Jess break up. I had to remake all of my friends again, and this girl was one of the easiest to get along with, and was also one of the key figures in my current social group. We get on well, I enjoy conversation with her, which is hugely important to me, although I don't find silence awkward with her either. She has an open mind about music which is also important to me. She doesn't have the best body, but she is pretty, and she is confident, and all that works for me.
The problematic part started around March time. Since re-making her as a friend we often joked with each other in the usual flirtatious ways, and this was fine until one of my closest friends decides he likes her. At this point, she was just a friend to me so it was all cool, although our flirting pissed him off so I had to tone it down a bit, which wasn't a problem for me. My friend thinks he's in love with her, although he'd never had a relationship before. He became slightly obsessed to say the least, and would say things about how he wanted his virginity to go to her etc. He made it obvious to her that he liked her, which caused many an awkward situation. It was stressing her out, because she couldn't do anything without seemingly hurting him, and it was upsetting her because they were really close friends before he decided he wanted more. She told him she wasn't interested in him that way, as they were too close, and he just wouldn't leave it. I figured she could do with a bit of light hearted stress relief, so once a week she'd come round just to chill, we'd chat, watch (and by watch I actually mean watch) movies etc. This was all good till one night, out of nowhere, and to this day I can't remember how it started, we were kissing. I was cool with it at the time, but when she left, I felt like a complete dickhead, cause at the end of the day one of my other friends REALLY liked her. Next time I saw her however it was like nothing had happened. Then the time after that she came round again, and nothing happened. One day we go to the cinema, I'm fully settled on the idea that it was just a one off and have brushed it off. On the way home, she says she doesn't really wanna go home yet, so I suggest we go to a nearby park, cause there's benches and I don't really wanna just walk around. Cue 2 hours of kissing (just kissing), and then I walk her home.
The process would just keep going on. I'd see her a couple of times like nothing had happened and then some random days she kiss me. This has carried on throughout the year, with more recently, her kissing me around our friends whilst on nights out, but not whilst they were paying attention to us. None of them (as far as I'm aware) notice it, or know anything about it. At the moment it sounds kind of lame, just kissing for however many months on and off. Here's one part of the situation. On various seperate occasions, I have (and there is no way of saying this without it sounding childish imo) played with her boobs, not through the shirt, but bare boobs (for anyone who doesn't know, I'm not a virgin or anything so this isn't something revolutionary for me). It's a problem because I've tried to take it further than this, but she always stops me, which somewhat confusing to me. I'm allowed to turn her on, but not allowed to do anything about it.. I get that she might not want to do anything out of a relationship, but if that were the case why let me turn her on.
Anyway, all this has been going on, I've just been taking it as it comes, it doesn't mean too much to me, it's a bit of fun. In the background, the friend who liked her got a girlfriend, lost his virginity, and sorted his life out, so I feel less bad about things. More recently, the whole kissing thing has been happening a lot less, and I've also come to realise I pretty much like her. This is where shit gets really complicated for me. When my other friend was in love with her, me and the girl had a chat about relationships, and at the time we told each other than neither of us were really interested in relationships. I had just come out of a long one, and she had her heart set on travelling. Also, I'm generally a very good judge of peoples body language or the way they react around me, the motives behind what they say etc, and I just cannot figure this girl out, and the whole on/off kissing thing is not helping. We haven't spoken about it, which is a mistake I made as I should have asked the day after, and I feel it will just be too awkward to bring it up now. If I asked her how she felt there is the problem of her doing it just for one, which again would make things awkward as it will become clear I like her, and then I'd lose a solid friend as well. I could just leave it, but there is the chance that if she felt the same way, I'd have missed an opportunity to have a relationship with someone who I feel would be a decent match for me. And then if we did both wanna make a go of it, would I be a dick to do it because of the old situation with her and my friend? It's all a lot of If's and but's, and doesn't make much sense typed up, but I've tried my best. I can't really talk to my friends about cause they wouldn't be much help really So yeh. There we go lol.