I'm going to lose it! I love this woman! I don't know what to do! Help!

Over the course of the past month and a half I have encountered, began conversing with, and lost my mind to quite possibly the most wonderful woman I have ever met.

She compliments me along every feature I have so feature observed. We enjoy literature, we have a general disregard for authority and we value education.

Relatively elaborate conversations have taken place, wherein we've revealed things about ourselves (unfortunately, its only been about school).

She was drawing a cheat sheet on her hand prior to an exam we had in the class, I couldn't contain myself, and cracked up. I told her I had essentially passed all my math classes by doing the same thing. The conversation wandered off, and I concluded it by telling her that if she was really worried she shouldn't hesitate to glance over at my table, I didn't really mind, and told her I'd done my fair share of cheating over the years.

Needless to say, I'm losing my goddamn mind over this woman...and I don't even know her name.

If I even began to tell you how much of a massive effect this woman has had upon me over the course of the past month...you would sh.it yourself laughing--The operations of the human mind are a great mystery indeed.

My speculations as to why I'm so damn obsessed with her would contain no more ground than yours. The only reasonable explanation I can raise is that I'm pretty fu.ckin' lonely right now and this woman is both stunning in appearance, and still possesses wit, she is the epitome of the sort of person with whom I would want to spend my life--Someone who has a very open mind, with whom I could have both a decent conversation, yet also a wonderful time.

My only problem is, I don't know whether she likes me, and in addition to this, I can't seem to rally my nerves together to speak to her effectively.

I can speak to absolutely anyone at all, but I still have difficultly speaking to her...unless it's school related--I can ask her how she did on her exam, but I can't ask how she is. And needless to say, this leaves the impression upon her that I'm some goddamn nerd--anyone who took even a quick glance at me would not think I'm a nerd, I have a sort of heavy metal look--I have long hair and prefer darker colors. But unfortunately I sound too intelligent when I'm speaking--friends have told me this, and my family has reinforced the claim.

The combination of sounding intelligent and speaking only about school related issues leaves an extremely unfavorable impression!

MY QUESTION: What do you think I could do to become more comfortable with her, and shift the conversation away from school related material?

From what you have said, it seems you need to start small and work your way up to topics outside of school. You both love literature. Find out what books you two can read together. Host a "reading party" where you two (and a couple of friends, if you get nervous) spend an afternoon reading aloud to each other. The book (or books, if you continue to do this) will give you a chance to discuss what might happen later, what has happened in the past to each of the characters, and all kinds of topics. Just talk about the book.

Good luck.