I fancy a close friend who has now become single

Hi,

First time poster here. I have a problem that requires some advice and I only have a short time frame to act in. A close female friend of mine who I have had feelings for, for a long time but never admitted to her has recently become single. I met her a few years ago at which time she had a boyfriend and we hit it off and have been close ever since. We seem to have a bit of a strange relationship, we have alot of shared experiences - holidays etc and because of that we have a bond. We are very touchy feely but at the same time I have never picked up any signals of her being attracted to me. Its almost like we are way into the friendship zone and she treats me like one of her girl friends or a brother. I really like her, in that shes very attractive and love being around her but I dont convey this to her very well when I am with her.

I found out her latest relationship ended last week while on a night out with her and some of my friends and the problem is that one of my friends who had never met her before took a liking to her and asked for her number with the intention of asking her out. I feel like I have to act now otherwise my friend or some other bloke will snap her up. A lot of my friends know I have feelings for her and have been urging me to speak to her for a while and now she is single I feel I have to act but I dont know how to approach it, if I'd just met her in a club I would ask her out for a drink but I dont feel I could do this having known her so long plus If I did ask i'm not sure my intentions would be clear i.e she would assume I wanted a catch-up. My other problem is I never seem to see her alone, she always has friends around her so the opportunity to have a deep conversation about feelings never seems to arrive. She lives an hours drive away so to see her usually involves us being on a big night out with mutual friends i.e I couldnt just drop in to see her.

I am really nervous about broaching the subject as I value her friendship a great deal and wouldn't want to lose touch but I expect her answer would be she likes me as a friend and so this conversation would make things awkward going forward. Some people are saying I've got nothing to lose but I feel like I have a lot to lose. My question is how shall I approach this subject shall I be honest and say I need to meet up for a chat? Anyone else had a similar problem? In terms of the scale of the problem I had fully expected that I lost my opportunity years ago so wont be disappointed if/when she rejects me I suppose I just feel I need to get my feelings off my chest or I will regret it when she gets her next boyfriend and I haven't said anything!

Cheers,

Suggsy