Don't give up so fast. All you've got to do is get the 'g' out of the ghosting word/equation and you will be *hosting the one you love

Shoot your shot!

That’s not how you treat someone you love. Ghosting hurts. If you love them like you claim to, the kind thing to do is tell them the truth. You developed feelings, you aren’t able to be just friends anymore, and you’re going to stop seeing them. It’s not the easy thing to do, but it is the right thing to do. To do otherwise is all about your own ego and that has nothing to do with love.

If there is something obstructing you from loving them more intimately the way you would want then I think you just need to focus on loving them as the "solid" friend that you should be.

If your friendship is at all appropriate and you really do consider them to be a solid friend to you and yourself a solid friend to them you shouldn't stab them in the back. This will cause them to have all sorts of betrayal trauma and grief. Just make yourself more busier with other things and allow yourself more time to pass in between when being apart from each other. Your immediate intimate desires will pass. You'll end up desiring someone else sooner or later.

Solid friends are never the sort of whiskey you should toss and spill. Solid friends always have each other's back to protect even when it means controlling how we feel. It's what it means to be solid. It's our integrity to be that way. Once the trust is gone, it's usually gone forever with no redoes or ways to get it back.

What is so bad about telling the person you love them? If you have a solid friendship already wouldn't that just make it better?

This is a beautifully honest confession. But why not tell that person how you feel? Isn’t it best to be straightforward upfront with them? No matter what the outcome is if that person loves you back or not, maybe it’s best to open your heart to them? Or perhaps maybe some things are better left unsaid? Your call. Take care of yourself and good luck.

Did you ever do what you advised OP to do?
Did you love someone and figured for some reason that you shouldn’t tell them and instead just avoided seeing that person and waited for your feelings to fade?
Maybe if you had told your secret crush how you felt, you might have found out they felt the same way and then you wouldn’t have needed to avoid them. If they were in a relationship and you thought you were being honorable not telling them how you felt, consider that they might have been miserable in that relationship and tried repeatedly to end it but their partner made it impossible to get free. You could have helped them get out of a terrible situation by telling them directly how you felt. But instead you basically fade away and that gives them the idea that you want them out of your life, so they disappear because your actions made them think you wanted them out of your life.

And then she used that knowledge to manipulate me. If the person might not feel the same way, you are setting yourself up to be used if they decide they want to use you. I ended up avoiding her and 'ghosting'.

No. I had that done to me but worse. They knew I had feelings I was keeping to myself out of respect for the relationship they had got themselves into. They pressed me to come forward with my feelings towards them. So I did. Then they publicly torched me, discarded me, and tortured me for it. It made them feel empowered and happy with themselves. I only comment because I don't want anyone to experience what I was put through and the life draining trauma bond that comes of it.