Like a girl I game with online, not sure how to move things forward

Hey everyone,

I’m a 30M and pretty introverted. I’ve been single my whole life and don’t really have much experience when it comes to relationships.

For the past few months, I’ve been playing online games with a girl (28F). We’ve been gaming consistently, chatting on Discord/text, and I genuinely enjoy spending time with her. Somewhere along the way, I started developing feelings.

I’ve tried dropping subtle hints that I like her. I have a feeling she probably knows, but she hasn’t really responded to it or acknowledged it in any way. Things just continue as normal.

We’re long distance. We mostly text and game. I’ve asked a few times about voice chatting outside of game-related stuff, but she doesn’t seem interested and usually avoids it. That makes me unsure whether she’s just shy, not interested, or sees me as only a gaming friend.

I was thinking of giving her my number to kind of “progress” things and see if she wants to connect outside of Discord, but I’m scared of making things awkward or losing what we currently have.

As an introvert who overthinks everything, I’m stuck between:

• Taking a small step and being honest
• Or just staying quiet and keeping things as they are

Has anyone been in a similar situation? How do you move something like this forward without making it weird? And how do you tell if someone is just being friendly vs. potentially interested?

Would really appreciate any advice.