lol I remember that movie. It is similar to my situation (though our goal isn't to test the bounds of platonic friendship...lol). We both have caught each other's interest, and we both are deliberately taking our time just to appreciate each other as people before anything beyond that complicates it...

I'm finding a depth and nuance to the relationship, even as friends, that I somehow missed out on before with others, and it's been a very satisfying, very emotionally gratifying experience. I think that is what I, as a younger person, didn't have the wisdom to appreciate until I was a little older. One of those life lessons that has to be learned. And now that I have this opportunity with her, I find myself wanting to mark off each step of what I perceive of as milestones to doing things right rather than just chasing ephemeral pleasures and frivolity, if that makes sense.

Like, I want to do things right so badly that I've set a few milestones in my head that I want to ensure I reach before letting things get more complicated because then first, the relationship can grow based on a deep friendship, and once it's established the things that tend to complicate relationships (sex, for instance) won't carry as much fear and anxiety as if they would be if pursued at the beginning.

I think of it sort of as a net. The relationship is the net, and the strength of its knots are the depth of the friendship established beforehand so that when things like sex come up (and it always comes up eventually) and falls into the net, the net is able to catch it without tearing or breaking. Whereas if I spend all my time simply chasing the fleeting pleasures, my net isn't being made and when something like sex "falls into it," that will ultimately destroy it because there will be holes in it. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's sort of how I perceive it.

I want to establish the relationship as strongly as possible before letting other things into it, I guess. And in the meantime, I'm finding it such an amazing experience to simply be in the moment with her.

This in turn makes me more self-critical and what I perceive of as botching something she was like, "What? That? Pffff. Don't worry about it." I thought for sure I'd wrecked something beautiful before it even got off the ground. lol So I posted here to vent and at least get it out of myself to externalize it and look at it from a detached point of view. I'd like to think that even out of this situation, I was able to learn something and apply it to myself to better myself.