I have a friend who I met in college and got along with really well and quickly developed feelings for. That was 6 years ago. At that time, for various reasons, I decided to stop pursuing. In between that period and now, she started dating another friend in our friend group and we naturally faded a bit. Come December, she broke up with her boyfriend of 4 years and we almost immediately started seeing eachother and spending a lot of time together. Those intense feelings I had for her started to resurface again to the point that I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I decided to let her know about how I felt a month later in February. She told me she felt the same and she’s always had this idea of us, but that everything is still fresh and she needed time to process everything. She told me that she can’t commit into a relationship right now but is not shutting down the possibility for one in the future. All this made sense to me and I knew that things were maybe still fresh, so I told her that we would both figure it out together and that we deserve to explore this a bit and see where it goes.
Since that conversation in February, we have been constantly seeing eachother multiple times a week, going on dates, going out together and partying, sleeping over my place and cuddling. It all got very intense very quickly and we let feelings take control. She came to me a month ago and said that we need to take a step back and try to be more like friends so that we don’t rush into anything / ruin our friendship. I was confused by this and thought this came out of left field because our relationship was naturally progressing and moving in the right direction. However, I told her that while I don’t agree, I understood and that she’s entitled to doing what she thinks is right. We talked about how long this “step back” should be and agreed that a month seems reasonable and we can have a pulse check after that time period. We did end up spending a couple of days taking a step back but quickly fell into our old ways harder than ever and ended up having sex a few days before the one month period came to an end (today marks one month). After having sex, I instinctively asked her to be my girlfriend to which, again, she responded by saying she was not ready.
I respect her feelings, but understand at this point I need to also protect my heart and I think the only way to do that might be to go no contact. I feel bad because I told her we’d figure this out together, and don’t want to cut her off and end our friendship. We have spoken about this and taken a step back, and she has expressed that she is surprised that I’m willing to stop being friends with her just because she’s not moving at my pace / matching my timeline among other things.
I’m just so confused and don’t know what to do. I don’t want to lose her but also don’t want to lose myself. Would appreciate any advice on this. Thank you
TL;DR. me and my best friend really like eachother, but she is fresh out of a relationship and cannot commit to me even though we have been acting like a couple for the past few months.