Coming out to a friend dilemma

[who_knocks]

I have a dilemma where I want to come out as aroace to a friend but I'm worried he might stop being my friend if I do, if he has a hidden crush on me or something. Part of why I want to come out is because people having romantic feelings for me stresses me out and I don't want him to end up wanting a romantic relationship with me or something. He would definitely support me, but if he did have feelings he might start distancing himself slowly and I'm afraid of that. It's probably super presumptive to assume this friend would even develop feelings for me in the first place, but I'm still worried and I don't want to lose him if he has. And people around me are always like "if two people that are attracted to each others' genders hang out enough then romantic feelings will develop" so that idea is not helping.

I'm probably being kind of paranoid because I worry that some people only want to get close to me because they want a romantic relationship and it feels like they have ulterior motives (which I know isn't really the case but I felt somewhat used when I found out a friend in the past was hanging out with me more because they had developed a crush. It's like they didn't really want to be my friend, they want something from me).

Does anyone have any advice? Am I overthinking this or would I be better off just never bringing it up to him?

[hemogoblin]

The truth is he might distance himself whether you come out or not. He might develop feelings even if you do come out. Or something completely unrelated could happen that causes distance between you two. You can't predict nor control the future, so you may as well just do what you want. 

I will tell you at least half my crew in HS has crushes on me but knew it would never happen so never told me (I presume that's why they didn't) and our connections stayed going strong. Unrequited feelings certainly don't have to be the end of things. They happen all the time, unfortunately.