How to get rid of a online-crush?

[Anonymous]

(my English is bad so I used google translate)
There's a girl I've known online for a number of years and have slowly developed an online crush on. She is very nice, has the same hobbies and interests as me and, like me, she is very concerned with spirituality, mindset and meditation. We speak regularly via WhatsApp and she also helped me a lot with mindset and meditation when I started doing it. About a year ago she decided to get rid of all her social media and no longer use it, with the exception of Instagram where she occasionally posts something. As a result, we don't speak much anymore because she hardly looks at her phone anymore (for the same reasons as social media) and sometimes it takes several hours to a day before she answers.

I notice that I have been thinking about her more and more in recent weeks and that is why that crush is also noticeable to me. I know it won't work out because of the distance and because I also sense this in our communication. The conversations are mainly initiated by me, but she answers them mostly in detail. How do I get rid of this online crush?

[sawno]

Nuclear way to do it: Ask her to be your girlfriend. Have it either work and be a very exciting experience or have her reject you and shatter the dream of it ever becoming that.
Gentle way to do it: Stop initiating conversations.

[Asker]

Wouldn't that make things awkward between us or ruin the friendship? She also already stopped responding on another message I'd sent her since some days ago, but thats most likely because she's currently traveling in Asia.

[Roudyrebel8]

Tell her how you feel

[Asker]

I dont know tbh. I don't want to ruin the years-long friendship we have and every deep-conversations we ever had. I've had this a lot in the past where I got feelings for a girl/friend, told her about it and within 1 or two months the friendship slowly died because we stopped talking, she stopped responding (or responded very dry) and stuff got awkward.