I think there's someone I want a QPR with

[Peggy]

So I posted on here a few months ago that I thought I might have a crush on someone but couldn't really tell. I went back and forth on this quite a bit, and realized it was probably a platonic crush. The thing is, I've become friends with this person over the past few months, but it still feels like I always look forwards to seeing him, think about him a lot more than I think about some of my other friends, and basically just want to spend time around him/talk to him. I've had platonic crushes before, but for me, those were always just like 'I want to be friends with you.' This is more 'I want to be in a QPR with you.'

Here's the thing. There's no way I could be in a QPR with this person because if I ever explained it to him, he would not get it, and also, I just don't feel comfortable explaining it to him or even explaining that I'm aroace. He's shown signs of being homophobic in the past - not outright 'I hate queer people,' but he always seems uncomfortable whenever the topic is brought up, and doesn't like talking about it (he has quite a few friends who are queer buuuut he still just always avoids the topic). I don't think he would understand me being aroace and I don't want to tell him. So, that sounds bad, and yes, I spend a lot of time wondering if I should really be friends with this person but he's honestly just a really nice and interesting person to me. He's really smart and knows a ton of random facts, so he's interesting to talk to, and it just makes me happy that he enjoys talking to me and sharing all those random facts. I also think that a lot of his friends are a bad influence on him (he's said in the past that some of his friends make fun of him by calling him gay because he has a fashion sense and sometimes he dresses more feminine - which could be a cause of the reason he's sorta homophobic, if he's exposed to that) so I really want to be a friend who actually cares about him and shows him what a good friendship is like. But I also just don't know how to express that I want a closer friendship, and I don't even know what I want out of this friendship. I don't think a QPR would be possible with this person, but it's my first time actually wanting a QPR so it's just a weird feeling.