There’s a guy in my class who’s very friendly with everyone and just generally a good guy. He’s smart, kind, and decent looking, and I want to approach him in a more-than-friendly kinda way but I’m almost certain he won’t be interested.

He’s quite nice to me, more so than usual recently as we ended up next to each other in a lesson recently and he took the chance to say hi and we had a bit of a laugh. I hadn’t really spoken to him before that point.

He’s in most of my classes (science, maths, English, Spanish, geography, and business - the only one he’s not in is art!) and I’ll be in his group on a geography trip next month.

I’m a very shy girl and not a huge fan of approaching people as I’m autistic and socially awkward. I’m more comfortable texting people than approaching in person. I’d rather get to know him before letting him know that I’m interested because personally I think it’s more awkward to be rejected by someone I don’t really know - but at the same time, if I befriend him first, he’s less likely to be interested as he’ll just view me as a friend.

What do I do? Bearing in mind that I’m very shy and anxious, how could I approach him? He’s not that loud either, but much more so than me; he doesn’t seem shy.