I LOVE YOU. It’s a phrase we adore saying when we feel it, but have you ever uttered it in haste? Or worse, to the tune of a nonresponse?
If so, then read on…
Let’s imagine you’re in a relationship with a guy whose name you’ve doodled in the margins of your notebook since your first year in high school. You’ve been going strong for ages with no signs of slowing down. You get along swimmingly, spend practically every waking moment together, and set off enough sparks to power a small city.
Together, you exist within your own bubble of poetic grandiosity. The birds are always singing. The flowers are in constant bloom. The air is free of pollutants. You walk on sunshine. The moon casts its spotlight just for you. It’s Valentine’s Day every day. You are a living, breathing Hallmark card.
But one day, you step out of la la land to detect a defining moment when things seem different, more serious. His touch becomes indubitably delicate, his kiss over-and-above sincere. An overwhelming surge of emotion washes over you, and you wonder if he feels it, too. He must, you rationalize. How could you feel this strongly and he not feel the same? It’s just not possible. Right?
Then the two of you share a look, and as you gaze upon the stars in his eyes, those three little words tumble from your mouth before you can stop them…
“I love you.”
You wait. Your heart races. Subconsciously, you’re already picking out china patterns and imagining a life filled with white picket fences and an army of mini-mes running around in the garden.
And then…
*Crickets*
Minutes pass like lifetimes until metaphorical tumbleweeds float by your feet. That magical, mutual exchange of sweet nothings and words of devotion, a scene you’ve concocted a gazillion times in your head, has turned into a disappearing act before your pleading eyes.
You suddenly realize you’ve made the granddaddy of all blunders. You dropped the L-Bomb and there’s no turning back.
To add insult to injury, your grand declaration of affection earns you a silence so deafening you can practically hear the glistening row of sweat beads as they break out along your partner’s hairline.
So you think fast, plastering on what you hope passes for a carefree smile before saying the first thing that comes to mind in an effort to diffuse the situation.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to say it back.”
To which you receive this reply…
“Okay. Cool. I really like you, though.”
“Gee, THANKS,” you think to yourself.
So what next? Despite wanting to lock yourself in a closet for the rest of your life with a limitless supply of KitKats and Doritos to keep you company, you know that’s not an option. You must face the music.
Your partner isn’t going to speak the words you long to hear.
Does that make him or her a sorry excuse for a human being? Hardly. Though it will probably make you feel like crapola for a while. But chances are, you’ve been on the receiving end of an L-Bomb yourself a time or two. That’s all kinds of awkward for both parties involved, and when you’re the recipient, it serves as grounds for the rejection you’ll be forced to hand to a partner whose emotions carry an intensity that doesn’t match your own. Yet, it’s one of the many harsh realities of life.
I’ve dropped a few L-Bombs in my time. I’ve caught my share as well. There’s no denying that relationships can be tricky to navigate on a good day, and we simply don’t always know what the other is feeling, even when we think we do. What one will interpret as a lifelong merger, the other may see merely as something fun to take part in for right now. It doesn’t make anyone right or wrong. It just means we’re human and sometimes we feel different things.
Of course, dropping an L-Bomb doesn’t necessarily mean a relationship is doomed.
Perhaps the other just needs a little more time to figure out what he or she is feeling. Perfectly understandable. Perfectly normal.
Other times, it signals the beginning of the end, which has been the case with me on more than one occasion. One such time devastated me to where I thought it would be fun to torture my ears with The Cure’s “Love Song” for an entire weekend nonstop. It was “our song.”
If I never hear that song again, it’ll be too soon.
After having survived that experience, I swore up and down that I would never drop another L-Bomb. But you know what? A few years later, I did. Why? Because I loved him. I still do.
And life is too damn short not to tell people how you feel about them.
So is dropping an L-Bomb really a blunder after all? On the contrary. In fact, I believe that suppressing feelings could lead to deep-seated regret in the long run. I think it’s better to know exactly where you stand in a relationship, even if the outcome isn’t what you would have hoped for.
But I must admit that spending some serious quality time with a heaping mound of KitKats and Doritos does sound tempting.
Copyright © S. A. Healey
