I'm starting to think that my friend (34f) and I (34f) have a mutual crush on each other. We met in the beginning of this year, never spoke about being attracted to women just guys. I like our friendship and that is why I'm trying to be just a friend. We talk about light and deep subjects, we laugh and we like to practice sports together. I find her funny, smart, grounded and just the right amount of being crazy and enjoying the life. She is also very good-looking and that was confirmed by my other friends.
So I have a "small crush" on her. The thing is I wouldn't be paying much attention to my crush-related feelings but I think she flirts with me in some ways. She doesn't compliment me or touch me a lot, but it happens sometimes and she holds me in high regard intellectually-wise and she thinks I'm caring. I consider myself quite decently looking and in the last couple of months a few friends and aquintances (even her boyfriend) told me I have a great body, so let's say at least I have a fit body (I practice sports on a regular basis). So because of her boyfriend I don't want to make any moves and I just try to be a good friend and treat her as a close friend with only platonic feelings. Regarding flirting she likes to spend time (and I like it as well) with me and it happened in the past she changed her prior plans with her bf to meet with me, sometimes alone and sometimes with my friends. We laugh and tease each other. Anyway, in the last few days I think her body language towards me was really flirty and it was difficult to not look at her in a more physical way. We went to a beach (not our first time) and she wanted my towel to be put on hers, so we laid pretty close. We spent the whole day together. On the beach this time she was playing with her hair from time to time and exposed her underarms and her chest a lot. For example when standing in front of me she just lifted her arms and put her hands behind her head for a while or on the towel she was lying on the side and she would flip her hair so she had her hair just on one side and her chest was more visible and brushed her hair for a few seconds. I guess she is a happy how her cleavage looks and I must say I glance at it from time to time without thinking because it indeed looks good (I wore my sunglasses). She brushes my hands from time to time, but lately she started to touch my hair. There have always been accidental touches between us, like she touches my hands or she touches my legs with her legs. If we are in a group we always find a bit of time to spend together without others. Lately I proposed her to something with a couple of friends and she said she prefers to do things together were there are not many other people. There are more signals she likes me in some way, but recently I was surprised a little how much she "showed off" her body and flirty body language when we were together because I think she knows she is good-looking but she's not the type of girl who wants everyone looking at her too much.
I'm not sure if I should try to protect myself somehow in case she (involuntarily) leads me on? Not sure if she is playing with me (she is mature and I believe she doesn't like to hurt people she cares about)? I'm not sure if it's just a regular friendly interaction or there is something going on, but at the same time I don't think she deliberately wants to lead me on. But I do think we both like the attention we get from each other and we like to spend time together.
Tl;dr I have a small crush on my friend. I'm fine with being platonic friends, but I think there is some tension and it results in flirting with each other.
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