Romantic Dilemma

[FAndrews]

Hi forum

It seems love has found me again, well kinda. I have now developed a quite serious crush on a woman at work, but being a overly analytical poor-confidence person about it because of the age difference (slightly more than ten years older, has two children but rather lovely and always a pleasure to be around ) and is my first serious crush on an older woman. this situation only happened after another work friend suggested now nice a couple we would make, which put the idea in my head and made me realise the fond spot i had for her is much more than just a fond spot, and i realise that i like her enough that the age difference doesn't bother me at all. Our friendship has become a lot closer and we have talked and texted every day for nearly five weeks.
Luckily she has invited me on a coastal walk over one morning with her soon (and its just her and me by the way) and think this will be a good opportunity to tell her how i feel , but i have trouble reading signals and haven't a clue whether she sees me as more than just a good friend. the problem is i risk ruining a good friendship but i feel the feelings are too strong that i have to do something about them (my other option is bottling it up and I've tried that before ) so its a case of do I don't I! and how? its nice to be in this situation in a weird way, its just working out how to handle it!
Any advice about what to do and how i go about doing it would be helpful and informative, so thanks

[PhilB]

Honesty is always the best approach if you ask me. Tell her that you are no good at reading signals and never have a clue whether or not someone is interested therefore you have to be blunt and speak plainly. Then tell her that you like her and hope she feels the same way. That's just my advice though - I'd rather know if someone wasn't interested so I could move on, rather than spending a long time wondering what was going to happen. Plus if you can't read the signs now you probably won't be able to in X months time, and the longer you leave it the harder it will be to ask straight up.

Do think about an exit strategy though. Telling her halfway through a walk could be akward for the rest of the walk. On the other hand if you can catch her alone after work for 5 minutes, you can make your feelings clear - and if she reciprocates then fantastic, and if not you've the opportunity to say thanks for listening and walk away.

P.S. I'm assuming she is single! If she's happily married and has kids then I'd walk away now.

P.P.S. Make sure you focus on the positives if you do tell her how you feel! Saying 'I like her so much I don't care about the age gap' is fine on a forum but not great to her face (but is precisely the sort of stupid thing I'd do!). Focus on what you like about her and how you want to be with her.

I hope it goes well!

[FAndrews]

Thanks

Yeah honesty is the plan, be honest and upfront tell how i feel and hope it doesn't ruin the friendship. but if it doesn't work out i'd rather have taken the risk than not, rather get closure than a what if? and yes i struggle to read signals, i'm fairly certain nobody has ever made a pass on me though.
And no of course she isn't married just divorced. its just working out the right moment and how to go about doing it. According to another friend they suspect that is unlikely due to other factors (and something she has heard which she wasn't supposed to know and can't really tell me) and some stuff she is dealing with. but i must do something about it and take the risk! there is always hope

[FAndrews]

late update: thanks to your advice, i can now watch out for any signs that she is interested in me in that way, and sadly it seems unless she hides it well, she only likes me as a friend and hasn't a clue about how i feel. it seems to just be a silly idea in my head that grew thanks to a friends suggestion so unless something happens to tell me otherwise i am going to leave this to fade away time to focus on other options.
still kind of sucks though bit of a harsh truth and at least nobody gets hurt except me, and no friendships get damaged.