This rinse-and-repeat cycle would be getting funny if it weren't getting old at the same time. So here goes, the latest in my continuing hassles with the female of the species. BTW, this will sound incredibly sardonic, sort of stream-of-conscioussness, as I can't write stuff like this straight arrow. It's probably a psychological thing.
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I'll call her Kara because I will. She's lived across the street from me for about seven years, with her brother for about the first two or three. She's a year younger than me, he's two years older. He's in the military, and we are quite good friends, we do a lot when he gets back on leave.

Because she punched my brother once (he kind of deserved it) and the fact that her then-stepdad was a grande-sized @$$h0le (no, not going there, it was ugly), a bit of a feud took place, a sort of mutual snubbing and loathing that lasted from about the year after they moved in, to last year. Things are much better now. MUCH.

Somehow I managed to keep myself out of that fray, and her entire family thinks I'm the cat's pajamas. Her brother and I stayed good friends, she and I wound up talking all the time online, and meeting (away from home) to hang out. They like me over there.

About two months before the feud broke out, she asked me out (I'll never know if she was joking or not). I answered with a laugh. BTW - bad answer. She wound up going out with a friend of mine, who was sad to say, better for her at the time than I would've been. Made it powerful hard not to go medieval on him when I saw him though.

One of the things that contributed to the feud was that apart from me, nobody in my family thinks very highly of her. She has drinking parties, and while she's not drinking to the point of an alcoholic, she is under age, and does drink quite abit. She's also had...ahem...several uh sleepovers...yeah. It ain't cool admiring someone from afar and seein' her sweep the snow off the driveway so when her parents come home, they won't see the tiretracks her boyfriend left in the morning. That don't fly too well with conservative, christian parents. They ain't her biggest fan. I don't care much for that opinion.

I've always...I don't know how to describe it...I've always cared for her. Hell, ever since she moved in. We've been friends (often across vast stretches of time when we didn't spend any time together), and I've always wanted to be more, but never said anything because I didn't want to ruin the friendship. Some of the people here with memories like mine might remember that I've mentioned her in passing a handful of times over the years. I've had girlfriends, she's had boyfriends...whatever.

Lately I've been hanging out with her a bit more. I've been inventing reasons, basically, and she's somewhat encouraged it. Helped her clean the house, she invited me over to party with her and her friends when I turn 21, we hang out and chat a lot, but she's busy and has places to go a lot. I kinda probed the idea of going out for coffee with her (she might've thought I was offering her the gift-certificates I was going to use to get the coffee), and she seemed at least mildly surprised and interested in the idea.

Last Monday, Kara invited me to go bowling with her and her friends. Would've gone, except there was some stuff at the house that needed doing, and I don't like depending on people who may have been drinking for transportation. (I nearly caused a multi-car pileup while learning how to drive and stepped away, I'm just getting back on that horse).

I turned down the offer, said I'd take a raincheck. I've been working up to asking her out for weeks now, and this sucked, but hey, I'll roll with it.

Thursday I go over, I wanted to ask her advice on how to handle an impossible employee where I work (like I said, making up reasons). She had to go about fifteen minutes later, and sometimes you just have to say "What the f***", (Thanks, Tom Cruise) so on my way out I thanked her for the Monday invite, asked if we could try again some time. She said yes. I said "Crazy question, but have you seen 'X' movie?" She says no. I said I'm looking for someone to go with, as my brother and other friends just want to see DH4. She says she doesn't go to movies, and spends like 90 seconds explaining why. Seemed kinda...bothered/irritated...when we said goodbye.

At this point, I'm thinking I've just torpedoed this friendship I've spent 7 years holding onto. I'm seriously thinking she was pissed at me for half-asking her out. And I've gotten slight indications that an old boyfriend might be rejoining the scene. (I'm not sitting there with a telescope, she lives directly across the street, it's hard NOT to notice who's coming and going.)

She came over yesterday and asked if I could let her dogs outside while she's gone overnight. I don't know if she's fine with me now, or if she's still irritated and figured I'd do just about anything for her.

What compounds the problem is that she's getting her own apartment in August, and at that point, if something hasn't developed, she's out of my life and permanently. Not only that, but I've entered my paralysis by analysis thinking loop - if it were to be described logically, it'd be a "for" statement without an "increment" variable.

I'm banging my head on the wall here, and I don't know what to do.
~Say I ask all my friends to go to movies, and apologize if she read something into it. See her drift out of my life in a month and a half, and regret it.
~Damn the torpedoes, flat out ask her out, and maybe ruin the only surviving good friendship I still have
~Not interact with her for a while, and forget the whole thing ever happened. See her drift out of my life in a month and a half, and regret it.
~Join the circus.
~Option 5. Don't know what it is yet, hopefully someone will suggest something.

I know, God loves a trier, you should only regret things you've done...this is different. This time, It's the most precious non-blood relationship I've ever had that is up in the air. Not only that, but I don't want to blow a hole in my friendship with her brother, and the friendship between her family and mine is not something I want tainted by them thinking of me as the "creepy neighbor with a thing for their daughter."

Help.

Adrian