Howdie, how's it going? I hope well. :)
So, I have a somewhat.... Hazardous situation going on right now. I have two very close friends, of which I consider my best friends. It's not one of those I gotta pick or lose both friends or whatever situations. But it's my mom as one best friend, and a guy that I've known for a long time.
My mom, though, is old fashioned. (I say that with love I swear!) She believes that if a boy and a girl are super close and talk a lot, they are dating. The issue is this- I don't feel that way about him. Sure, he's a great guy. But he's not the kind of guy I see myself spending forever with, you know? He's just a really good friend of mine. I explained that to my mom in the most tactful way that I could.
But then I discovered through her and a mutual close friend of him and I that he likes me, and just doesn't want to tell me for fear of me going to my mother. Which is so overwhelming because he's always saying how there's this special girl that he hopes to get with in the future, but right now she doesn't seem ready for a relationship.
I want to go to my mom, but he doesn't know that I know about it yet. The friend told me so that if I did or didn't feel the same about him, we could resolve that part up on our own time. I'm just at a loss... I want to be his friend, but I don't want him to have these feelings, then do the whole friendzone thing which I find cruel... What do I do?

I know I post this bs a lot, i'm sorry. I am a dramatic teenager.

Aw, don't feel bad about it, these kind of situations are part of life, and they're never easy to deal with. I don't have any wise advice, sadly, and to be honest, the most awesome advice for one person's situation can be the worst ever for the exact same situation with two different people because no-one's the same and going to have the same reactions.

To me, honesty with kindness is the best approach. Your friend needs to know that you don't have romantic feelings towards him (and that that's not the end of the world). It's fantastic that he is picking up the fact that you're not into him, even though he's not translating it correctly, but the fact that he thinks you're not ready shows he's not totally blind or unreceptive to vibes/body language at least. It's definite that this mystery girl he talks about is you? If it is, it's so typical of a guy to do that ><

First of all the way your mom thinks is not so much " old fashioned" -points to self- My best friend is my boyfriend. I knew him for a year before and he threw hints and me but i don't catch on to things really fast since im not a romantic hahaha. Ask yourself this question. " Would i be hurt if he found someone else?" But on the other other hard you may NOT really like him and you should just tell him this. And like jelly said. Is he talking about you??? He could be talking about someone else.