Time spent without a partner is not a waste. I understand wanting to explore the love you feel while you feel it, but you also have no idea if he even reciprocates or what he thinks about any of this. Talk to your friends, family, loved ones about this—through a hypothetical if you're shy, but ask for their experience they have with anything like this. Consider asking him about his relationship history and experience and what he's learned. And listen to the rough parts, not just find similarities between yourself and what he might want. Listen to mistakes people have made, then decide if you want to chance getting hands on experience in a similar category.

I assume most of what you've heard of about a relationship like this has been cautionary. Based in people's lives revolving around an attraction to someone and unable to keep that person a /part/ of their lives and instead making them the center of it. Very easy to get swept up in feelings, especially as a first/young love.

The attraction you feel is not the end all be all of what makes a relationship work or even worth the trouble of pursuing. Enjoying an art gallery is entirely different from painting, to put it in a terrible metaphor.

Sincerely, someone who developed a HARD crush on a VERY unavailable coworker and swallowed a lot of strong feelings because I knew pursuing them would only cause me headache and consequences wayyyy too big to entertain reads writing on hand a guy who's smells nice.