Asked a Friend to Hang Out and Now I'm Confused
I (33M) have never been great at dating and also have put little effort into it most my life, because I fall somewhere in the asexual-demisexual range and generally prefer to keep to myself. As I've been getting older the lack of a partner has been getting to me.
So I was feeling a especially lonely recently and just kind of decided to reach out to a lady friend of mine who is in my friend group. I asked her if she wanted to hang out soon and she actually said yes and is actively trying to make plans with me now. I had suggested what I believe to be less romantic type of activities like going to the local botanic gardens or farmers market, and in one of my messages I said literally "I just want to be friends".
Because she is actually more interested in hanging out than I expected/am used to, I'm now confused about how I want to approach the situation and what I even want out of it. I know I like and care about her, but its pretty complicated since she dated one of my friends for many years. I had been approaching the situation in a fully platonic way up until this point but that demisexual switch just suddenly flipped in me and it's overwhelming. I don't really need advice like "does she like me", I'm confident I will be able to work those details out when we hang out. It's my own feelings I need help with, because I want to be friends with her but also possibly more but I don't actually want to jump into dating too quickly because of being demisexual and also having a difficult friend group situation.
Part of my confusion I guess is just my overall feelings of loneliness and how I perceive relationships. I wish I could be closer with more women. I wish it was normal to cuddle with your friends and being able to do date-like things together without there being a romantic or sexual connotation. I have a natural platonic affinity towards women and it just always comes off as romantic/sexual attraction from their POV, so then I get confused about what I actually feel. In fact I tend to like women who are in relationships, I believe because I feel less pressure that there could be these connotations. I have a similar situation where my neighbor I met as a married woman but is now getting divorced so I have a crush on her. But it isn't easy to get into a QPR-type situation with most people so I feel pressured to have to pursue a full relationship with every woman I like.