I like you.
There, I said it. I wrote it down: I like you.
I know, that’s weird. But it’s true. Maybe I’m just a hormonal teenage girl who’s crushing on a boy. But when I think of you, my heart stops. And then it skips, and then it goes so fast, I feel faint. You make me nervous, and you make me calm, all at once. You make me want to be someone better than myself. Even though all I want is for you to think of me as enough. Just enough.
I should have said something sooner. This summer was the perfect opportunity to do so (and other people agree), but I was scared. You could have rejected me right there and then; it would have been awkward and the end of our friendship. But I think you liked me too, at least a little bit. Even so, neither one of us made a move, besides just texting and asking to hang out. Best case scenario, had I asked you out and you said yes, we would have been happy. I know I would have been. But then you would go off to college and I would stay here and we would slowly drift apart until things ended (officially), which I thought would tear me apart. There would have been a countdown on our time together, and I thought that at least this ambiguity would be better than having the door shut and our relationship officially end. Maybe x felt the same, and that’s why you didn’t say anything either. And so I resigned myself to just being friends, or whatever “situationship” we had going, because even those interactions with you made me happy.
But after you moved away, I missed you. A lot. I had talked to Matt earlier in the summer about liking you, and he had encouraged me to tell you. He even called April, who also told me to go for it. So when I told him that I missed you, he (understandably) wasn’t very sympathetic. He told me that it was too late, that I couldn’t expect to stay in contact with a first year college student, and that I needed to give you space to enjoy yourself. He was extremely blunt, and I immediately started crying, but deep down I knew he was right and I just needed to hear it. That’s why I was crying at 3AM, and that’s when that midlife-crisis I told you about happened. Among a lot of other things, one thing I took away from that night was that I was going to let you go. And that’s why I stopped texting you.
I should say something to you now, but I probably won't. You‘re happy and I don’t want to bother you or change that, but I really just want to talk to you again if just to get some closure. I know that I’m supposed to move on. That is the sane thing to do. But I can’t. Or I won’t. Whatever it is, these feelings won’t go away.
You’re the first person I think of when I wake up in the morning. Everything throughout my day reminds me of you. I can be in conversation about anything with anyone, but somehow you keep popping up in my mind. All my friends have heard me talk about you at one point or another. I am infatuated.
But the term “infatuated” makes it seem like something that’s short-term or just temporary. The reality of it is that I’ve liked you for a while, even back to sophomore year. Nothing that compares to how I like you now, but I used to steal little glances at you during Spanish and we would make eye contact and I would make a face and look away. After I left, I’ll admit, you faded from my mind for a while. But when I bumped into Tina in the beginning of this year and she mentioned that she and a group of friends (you included) were going to meet up the next day, I wanted to see you again, and so I went.
And now I’m in pain. And I know the pain will pass. It’ll go away eventually, right? There has to be some point when I can stop thinking about you all the time or wonder what you’re doing,
But I keep hoping that somehow, that by some miracle, you think of me the same way that I think of you. Or that you realize that I am someone who would hold your hand unexpectedly, who would laugh at all your bad jokes, who would take care of you when you’re sick, who would give up everything and move across the world for you, and with you. Because I am foolish and stupid and irrational, and totally and completely and entirely in love with you.
And that’s it. That’s all there is to it, really. Just love. Pure, frightening love.
But I have to sit here quietly with it, and pretend. Pretend to be strong, pretend that it’s okay that you probably love someone else the way I love you; pretend that I am okay. And maybe I will be. Maybe everything will be fine. Maybe. But for now, I miss you. And it hurts.
I regret that I never told you I liked you. I regret that I never told you how much you mean to me, what kind of person you are. I wish I would have told you that you are the man that I compare every other man to. That none match up because they're not you. You're the man that makes me light up when you walk in the room or when I hear your name. I regret not telling you this.
I don’t know how it started, and I don’t know how it’ll end. Somewhere along the line, though, I started to like you. Maybe it was that smile. Or perhaps it was the passion in your voice when you’re talking, or the way we can sit in front of an In-N-Out and talk for hours.
I don’t think you even see how much I like you, and I doubt you ever will. I might be permanently friend-zoned, even though I would love to lean my head on your shoulder and wrap your arm around my waist.
I wish that I could be the one that makes you smile when I walk in a room, or the person that you’re proud to introduce to your friends as someone you care about. I wonder if somehow you’d ever feel the same.
I've replayed almost all of our conversations in my head. Casual conversations, nothing important, yet I feel like I've taken notes on everything you said.
Sometimes when I’m lonely, I imagine what we would be like. Would we be the cheesy, romantic type? I think we’d spend most of our time laughing, telling stories, and enjoying each other’s company. We might talk all through the night or go on road trips together, but I know I’d be happy.
The worst part about it all is that it’s just never going to happen. There are far too many complications to ever make anything of it, and just saying that makes me sad. Maybe if you were here and in my grade. Or if I had stayed and never transferred schools. You once asked me if I had thought about if I had chosen your team instead of the one I did and what life would be like. My immediate thought was that we might have gotten closer, maybe even crossing the line into dating territory.
I haven’t figured out how to let go and move on, even though Matt and my friends say that I should. I know that there’s no use in me to keep crushing after you, but the possibility of something more makes me smile when I’m on the verge of tears because of how stressful everything is.
So maybe this is the only way to truly get my feelings out. By writing this, knowing you’ll never read it, and letting go of what I’ve been thinking for really quite a while. Time will pass, our conversations will slowly fade, but somewhere in my heart, a place for you will always remain.
Most Helpful Opinions