I think I might be falling in love with my bestfriend?

[peaceNlove]

Okay so my best friend and I have been friends for about a year. We basically became best friends like right away, maybe only a few months into our friendship when we first met last September. Anyways, so i kinda realized half way through our friendship, I noticed that we're kinda affectionate for friends. What I mean is, we tend to be very close together at times, we hug a lot, and hold hands a lot. I never really thought much of it until we spent a 4 hour bus ride on a school choir trip to Las Vegas. For those 4 hours we basically like cuddled and listened to music together and just laughed together looking at funny pictures in the app Ifunny and stuff like that. It was like that the 4 hours there and 4 hours back after about 4 days. I really liked how close we were and it just felt right and i liked it. And then summer vacation started and we barely saw each other, and I thought about being with him ALL the time. And I don't really know what happened, but somehow stuff happened to where we couldn't hang out. I think it was because his phone was broken, but school started and it really made me realized that I missed him a lot more than i thought i did. He's one grade level below me and I'm a senior now and he's a junior now so now we have the same lunch so we get to spend more time together throughout the day than last year. Now that its the weekend, i can't help but want us to hang out every day! A few days ago we were talking about relationships and whatever and he told me that he would date me. By the way, he's bisexual but prefers guys over girls. He rarely talks about dating a girl, but he said he would date me. I think that what's holding me back is that 1) he's younger than me and I never pictures being with a guy who's younger than me 2) he's kind of immature 3) my parents want me to date someone who's either as smart as me or smarter and he's a grade level lower, plus im in AP classes and he's in CP 4) he's not really the kind of guy i picture myself being with. Okay i know this stuff sounds WAY superficial, especially the smart thing, but when looking for someone, don't you want someone thats your standards? I'm not trying to sound snobby, but thats what i think. The thing about being smart is mainly my moms thing. But I honestly do really like him. What should I do? All these standards that i have that was basically taught to me by mom, it made me kind of in senile of my feelings for him, if that makes sense. Sorry this was long, but do you have any advice?

[Drag0nite]

If you really do like him you should just bite the bullet and go for it none of those things should matter if your together. if your parents dont approve of him then you can work it out with them. And likeing some one a grade below you isn't that bad because most people later in the years will get married to someone 5 years younger and to think about just a 1 year difference isn't that bad.

[Luminous]

It sounds like you like him but I think you should give it more time. Wait until you're relaxed and ready to deal with dating someone that doesn't meet your usual standards. It sounds like you would be a good couple but I think you would feel a lot of guilt if you had a closer relationship with him now. Try and really sort through your feelings about who you're okay with dating.
Best of luck.

[unnamed94]

the only thing i can tell you is that you shouldnt care about him being younger, 1 year is almost nothing at your age, or about him not meeting your parents standards, its you who will be dating him, not them. other than that it feels like you are not so sure about him, so you should really think about wether you would date him or not. good luck

[Faolan]

If you really like him, go on a date. Smartness isn't everything to a person.

[Gumleaf]

You know, the reasons you have given could result in you having no boyfriends. What I mean is, if you don't follow your heart sometimes and over think why you shouldn't date someone, then you'll find you won't date anyone. Since you've been apart for so long over summer it might be wise to wait a little while to make sure you're still connecting like you were a few months ago. But I think if you are, then go for it. These sort of opportunities with connections like this don't come up all the time.