im sure yall have heard this before, so here it is again.

okay there is this girl, katie, that i have known for a while. we both consider each other good friends. she is the only person that i can really talk too, and i for her. even we are dating people, we will go to each other with the problem first before our bf/gf.
recently, we have become much closer, and we both have shared with each other how we feel.
im not goig nto say that she is "the one", but when i am around her this inner joy comes out that i have never felt before, and i have noticed that she is around that she feels safe and secure with me, and she is able to act as herself with no fear of persecution. infact she has said so.
we have never really sat down and talked formally about dating, but it has popped up briefly every once in a while. as of now it is basically my call.
you see right now we have, probably, the perfect friendship as friends. but she and i have had a history of skrewing up our relationships. so what i want to know is...should i date her have somebody to love, but possibly later messing up and lose my best friend. or should we just stay friends?
she has told me that she would love to date me, but she feels the same as on the matter. so she has left it up to me. she knows me to be a smart person, who thinks things through, and finds solutions to problems. honeslty i feel like a dumbass sometimes for not already dating her.
so i ask yall, i feel that by asking yall i can get many different un-biased opinions on the matter.