I'm Afraid to Tell You I Love You
I’m afraid to tell you I love you. I’m afraid of blurting those three words out of my shaking lips and ruining everything we have. I’m scared because our friendship is a unique bond that we’ve carefully built over the years, that has lasted despite the challenges we’ve faced.
Those two words, which I’ve said before but never really felt, that were more out of affection than true love. Now I understand that when you really feel what you’re saying, you get scared, because those words carry a private but genuine part of yourself.
I’m afraid, but I know that I love you, because every time I touch your skin, I get goosebumps. Every time I see you, the butterflies in my stomach start to flutter. Every time I hear your voice, it touches my soul, like a soft spring breeze caressing the leaves of the trees.
The truth never damages true friendship
It took me a long time to acknowledge it, but I know that I love you. I know because of the way you make me laugh during hard times, because you know that silence is part of the trust that we’ve built, and because being together is enough to show how much we care about each other. But above all, I love you because you know exactly who I am and you accept my dark side without questioning it for a second.
That’s how I know that the feeling is real, because we don’t idealize each other; we know each other. The tenderness and intimacy between us shows that our affection for each other is real, and in my case, it has turned into love.
“Trust is putting the darkest, most precious, or most feared parts of yourself into the other person’s hands, knowing that they’ll only use it to help you transcend.”
They say that home is where the heart is, and I always feel like I’m at home when I’m by your side, spending my time with you. I f our connection is so real and so meaningful, than I know that being honest about how I feel won’t break it.
When it’s true friendship, honesty can’t ruin it, even if we don’t feel the same way. If I decide to tell you how much I love you, you might not feel the same way, or our friendship might turn into a deeper yet equally eternal bond.
If I choose to tell you how I feel, it’s because it’s killing me to keep it a secret and it’s futile to suffer for something that you can change. Maybe you love me too. I won’t lose anything by telling you my feelings except the anxiety that I feel right now
If you don’t share my feelings, don’t worry, just be honest and give it to me straight. I can take rejection because loving you has made me understand that maybe I’m not the person who makes you the happiest. I can accept that somebody else might fill that space in your heart that I can’t fill. Love can’t do everything, but friendship is always triumphant through adversity.
Don’t worry, I know that you can’t beg for love, and if you don’t receive it in return you have to let it go. I know that I’m not perfect and you might not see me as more than a friend, and maybe you even see me as a sister, but I’ve learned that people who never take risks never win.
I also know that it will hurt when I see you with other women, but it already does, and only when those three words leave my mouth will I be sure that I’ve done everything possible to prevent that kind of suffering. Telling you I love you will open the doors to a new life full of infinite possibilities.
Maybe what I’m telling you seems too idealistic, maybe the pain of rejection ruins friendships, but mature love is understanding and respectful and puts the other person’s happiness above everything else. The opposite would be possession.
On the flip side, if you were the one who chose to distance yourself because those three words scared you, because you couldn’t conceive of a friendship that can conquer rejection, then I’ll know that you’re not a true friend. True friendship is living with each other’s contradictions. True friendship knows that you don’t always feel the same way and that it’s normal to feel uncomfortable because of that.
Maybe before running away, it’s better to take perspective and talk to the other person so you can understand and set boundaries that both can live with. Learning to live with each other again will be a challenge, but if we’re true friends, we have a solid base on which to rebuild ourselves.
I can’t be afraid to tell you I love you
This is all to say that I know that saying I love you should never be scary if it’s towards a friend, because even though we’re afraid of destroying the bond we have, living a lie causes more harm than our true feelings. Our true feelings probably wouldn’t separate us.
You might think that friendship is fragile against love, but it’s actually stronger because it already faces so many different types of adversity. True friends can overcome anything together, so there’s no need to be afraid of saying I love you. Instead, it should be viewed as just another challenge. So today I’m saying loud and clear that I’m done being afraid, and that I love you.