I'll elaborate a bit because you made the effort to type up a long comment and I didn't do the same.

The direct approach is obviously the better and less schoolchildish, and I get the merits and respectfulness of honesty. But while I'm no Don Juan, I'm not entirely innocent either. Why, just last year I had a disastrous relationship with a friend! And, actually, on a serious note, that makes me a bit more apprehensive about doing anything; I'm worried abouthat this could just be another brief infatuation that'll pass as soon as it came on, and while I'm on good terms with that other friend, it upset her a lot and permanently changed the nature of our relationship. I don't want that with this friend, y'know? Neither do I want to end up hurting her or permanently have it hanging in the back of my mind when we talk.

It's not just the typical ball-lessness of the friendzone. I mean there's that too, let's be real. But I'm also genuinely confused. Someone said to me once that when you get involved with a friend, it's not exactly like your relationship has "evolved", but almost like you now have two concurrent ones. And more to the point, I feel both friendly toward her and something more, and those emotions overlap and conflict in weird ways. So I'm not even sure what I want, to a certain degree.

So why do anything at all? Maybe only because one cannot leave a story unturned!

As you can see, I excel at justifying my cowardice.