How do I know if a friendship is actually progressing?

[DemureRose]

So at the beginning of this college semester I began a friendship with this guy from one of my classes. It slowly progressed in the beginning from us going from emailing about assignments to getting each others contact info and talking everyday.

We even hung out for maybe an hour after class one day while he showed me some good spots on campus to get food and such. After that hang out, I thought things would progress even faster since we had seemed to get passed the awkwardness of blossoming friendships.

But now I'm confused.

See over text, we have nearly reached the "really good friends" stage. We talk everyday, like I said, and our conversations have moved from the generic "get to know you" stuff to genuine conversations ranging from funny to serious.

But our in-person interactions are seriously lacking in substance. We seem to be unable to communicate the same way as we do over text. The vibe isn't there. Granted this could be due to the fact that we both are incredibly awkward and have forms of social anxiety but I thought we were passed the weirdness phase!

At first, before we started talking, I wondered if he was interested in a friendship that went beyond class. Now I think he does, considering he responds to my texts and even initiates conversations himself often, but that isn't the impression I get in person. We have pretty impersonal conversations and are back to the generic stuff in class, despite already knowing most of it.

I want to hang out with him out of class, but it's the uncertainty of where I stand that makes that difficult. I don't want to put him in a weird position by initiating a hang out if he only wants to be friends in class.

Me and this guy...we have a creepy amount of stuff in common considering we randomly were assigned partners for an assignment on the first day of class. I mean very similar personalities, issues, likes, dislikes, etc.

I have never met someone that I shared so much in common with, so I really don't want to mess this up.

[Damian]

He's also probably feeling scared in case he messes it up!

My guess is that he finds you attractive too, and that will make it harder for him. Online it's just text so a bit impersonal and he can easily write a reply. In person he can't think what to say because there are all these other feelings too, and he doesn't know what to do with them.