<human>: Hi all. Well, I'm here for advice. I'm super into my good friend and I have been for a solid year now. However, there's one slight issue- he's still hung up on his ex, who's in our friend group. His ex is *supposedly* very over him and has even given me the go ahead to start seeing him (I was not as subtle in my crush as I had hoped to be), but he's so into her that I feel nervous putting myself out there. Our entire friend group thinks that we should get together and even his mom loves me. Recently, he's been trying to get back into dating and he keeps asking how I feel about it or for my advice. It's a little uncomfortable. People keep pointing out that he's acting different around me- more animated, with "a sort of sparkle about him" (not lying, that's what was said). We've recently started hanging out all the time, we go to mass together (his idea- I'm not Catholic, but I really like the priest), we get dinner together often, and just generally spend a lot of time together. I'm not too sure if he's even into me in a romantic sense, so this could potentially get weird.

Anyway, I'm nervous about this for a few reasons. 1) Should I just go for it? How do I proceed if he's not into it? 2) Even though his ex gave me the go ahead (she even mentioned to him a few months back that I would be good for him), I'm not too sure if I trust it. She has pretty severe jealousy issues and I don't want to mess up our friend group for the sake of a relationship. How do I navigate that mess? 3) If I were to do this, how should I ask him?

Can you succinctly summarize the text in 1-3 sentences?
<bot>: I'm into my friend, but I'm a weenie and don't want to f*** it up. Send help.