Search Results: too shy to say we like each other

PLEASE READ
Ok before I explain my situation, I'm gonna give you a bit of backstory. Let me describe me. I'm currently 17, doing year 12 and aspiring to be and actor/artist. I'm a pretty shy person when I'm around people I find intimidating or I'm not particularly close with, but I'm wild af when I'm with friends/family. Tbh I don't think I'm pretty but most of the guys reckon I'm "hot". I could be described as 'unpopular' by someone who doesn't know me, but really I just know who my real friends are (quality over quantity ya know?). I don't particularly care about the opinions of people I don't like but I'm scared of being judged (this is going somewhere i promise).
At my school, the art class is yr 11 and yr 12s combined bc we're a fairly small school. There's only 1 yr 11 guy in art this year and before this year we didn't rlly know each other but I'd always thought he was pretty hot. We've been talking since the start of the year and now we're actually pretty close friends. Recently he has started to drop BIG hints that he likes me and I've started to like him. He's bloody funny and we're interested in the same movies and read the same books and shit. Most of my friends support it, buuut 1 or 2 say he's not rlly the dating type. Like he's not rlly a fuckboy, but he's not a softboy either. He's friends with those feral but weirdly popular people, and he's kinda feral too, but not as bad. Aside from the feralness and slight fuckboy behaviour, he is a pretty perfect guy. I rlly like him I would date him but I'm scared of what everyone else would say and I hate being bitched about. I NEED HELP.

Do I go with it regardless of what people will say, or listen to my friend and not date him?

There’s this guy at school and we had a 2 week break from school and all throughout those 2 weeks we’ve been texting. He normally starts the convo first by saying either hi, how was ur day or just randomly commenting on my story or something to get the convo going. At schools he’s always complimenting me saying wow u look nice today but I don't know if he’s joking or not I’ve asked him and he says he means it. We went back to school last week and he didn’t talk to me i think he was shy but I could see him looking at me and I was too shy to say hi to him first too lol. Today he just jokingly said hi babes 😂 he’s just a jokey person but my friends are saying no he actually likes u but I’m confused. We’ve known each other for about 4/5 years due to school and we used to argue cuz we didn’t get along but now I think he’s maturing. Sorry if this is so long I just didn’t know how to explain it lol.