He's my cousin's room mate, he came for a visit with my cousin the other week and we've been talking online since.
Yeah. It sounds both long-distance and still sort of tentative then. :/ Sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn't.
In that situation, my response is normally to send e-mails every few days if I don't see them online, touching base. "This really cool thing happened to me," or "I saw this and thought of you." When I got to my most closeted during high school and parts of college, thinking, "I can tell X about this," was enough to get out and experience life. That way, I wasless bored, and at least communicating some.
In this case "the worse" is having a totally awesome close friend who happens to be of the opposite sex. I'm not completely head over heels for this girl or anything. I could see myself that way if we start dating (the best,) but I can put my emotions on hold until then.
In my internal, grandiose self-narrative, I've often fancied myself as a Cyrano figure, one who is content with the solace of feminine friendship. I level this as a criticism against my own behavior as well as yours - seeing that as a compromise has always struck me as a hypocritical statement. It's not hypocritical to be content as friends but leave the possibility of something more open. Or, even being disappointed at times that nothing has happened, that's understandable. But to call it the worse option because something could happen but hasn't... to me, that cheapens the present relationship and glorifies the romantic relationship that, for some reason or another, hasn't happened.
All that said, I do sympathize with you and phyco. Whether they're unwilling to have a relationship, or you're not ready to risk acting towards one, or whatever... it's not always easy having affection for someone without it being returned. But I try not to make friendship into an exile.