Have you ever sat down and wondered what would happen if you said ‘I love you’ to the one who most likely does not love you back?
Have you called them, only to hang up? Typed and deleted text-essays confessing your love? Felt the urge to spit out your feelings cause you can no longer stuff them down without killing yourself in the process? If you have, or if you do, I’ll walk you through a very personal excerpt from my life.
I don’t usually (or ever) publish them ‘Dear Diary’ like pieces but this one, in particular, deserves to be out there. Fair Warning, TL; DR Alert.
I wanted to scream ‘I love you’ from the top of a mountain, to not just someone I loved but to an ex-boyfriend. And even if you cringed when you read this, don’t think this story isn’t for you. I think it is. It is for everyone because the lack of courage to express love, is an all people problem.
Once you get hurt in love, you become closeted and careful. You constantly peek over your shoulder expecting to find a knife in your back. You dread the very act of falling in love but the act of expressing it, in words, sounds even more mortifying. And yet, the most profound lesson I’ve learnt in life is that the only risks worth taking are the risks you take in love. They might pay off, they might not. But they will take you one step further than where you are.
Moving ahead in any direction is still a million times better than being stuck. The only catch is that you need to be prepared for any kind of outcome.
If you love someone, you tell them
Coming to my story, one-year post-breakup, I couldn’t get my ex-boyf off my mind. So much that it was driving me insane. I knew he was in love with someone else. I knew he doesn’t even spare a thought about me. Even though, I had been feeling this intense urge to reach out to him for a long time; I knew there was no point, so I did not.
The fact that you love someone does not necessarily mean you make them feel loved.
Yes, those are two entirely different things. The ground shook beneath my feet the day I understood that. He had me, madly in love with him and it didn’t work for him. We ended on a terrible note so my ‘I love you’ was probably the last thing he’d ever want to hear.
But that night, the urge was unbearable, so was the pain. I drafted a series of messages. Typed. Deleted. Typed. Deleted. For hours. I was terrified of what would follow. What would I do if he said he doesn’t love me. Which was actually easier considering what we’d do if he said he loves me too. I know it was unlikely, but hey, a girl can dream.
During the whole Text-Him-Text-Him-Not struggle, I could hear Mark Sloan’s words echoing in my head
“If you love someone, you tell them. Even if you’re scared that it’s not the right thing. Even if you’re scared that it’ll cause problems and burn your life to the ground, you say it. You say it loud and you go from there.”
So I said it. I mean I can’t take all the credit. I owe half of it to the vodka. But I said it. In a lot of mushy-gooey words on a long-ass Whatsapp text. To the man who had left me long ago and had never spoken to me again.
Talk about being brave and absolutely fucking stupid.
Given A Chance, People Can Surprise You
Once I pressed Send, my anxiety shot through the roof. In my head, I had multiple scripts running at the same time.
- He sees my name pop up on his phone and blocks me
- He reads the message, gets annoyed and ignores it
- He reads the message and tells me to leave him the fuck alone
Then there was the 0.1% possibility that I was rooting for. I had its dream sequence nicely spun in my head. I get a call from him, we talk, I cry upon hearing his voice that I believed I would never hear again. We tell each other how even after all this time apart, the love lives on and we’re willing to risk everything on the off chance that this might work. Fast forward a few days, we’re talking and figuring it out, slowly. Fast forward a few weeks, I’m lying next to him, telling him how I prayed every night for this to happen. Okay, I didn’t go further than that. Jeez, I’m not a fantasy scriptwriter guys.
Of course, all this did not happen. I mean, let’s be real—this isn’t a movie. He didn’t say he loved me. He did something else though. Within five minutes of me sending the message, he sent the sweetest response, melting my heart.
“I think about you too. Somedays, I even miss you. Hope you’ve been well.”
I know he didn’t mean that he thinks of me obsessively, the way I think of him. I know he didn’t say he missed me because he was going to change our lives. I think he simply validated, acknowledged and respected a woman who loved him, even when he no longer loved her back. And I have no words to express how taken aback I was and also, how much I appreciated that response.
Difficult Conversations Have A Bittersweet Tinge
The conversation was quite platonic from his end but I had three bottoms-up worth of liquid courage in me so I boldly professed how much I love him and that he will always have my heart. In a lot of poetic verses, too embarrassing to even admit. But I wouldn’t change any of that for the world.
It’s almost funny how I had rehearsed my answers and he had no time to plan his. But he spoke from his heart and that meant everything. It was incredibly beautiful but very painful at the same time cause all I could hear was that we weren’t ‘us’ anymore.
I told him that for me, he will always be ‘The One That Got Away’ (Katy Perry reference) and even though he had NO FEELINGS for me, he laughed. With sincerity. Just like he used to. He hadn’t changed one bit and yet, had changed completely. It felt like he was still the same person, living the same life, doing the same things. Probably the only thing that was different was how he felt about me. There was poetry brewing in my mind almost immediately. The writer in me had to fight down the urge to ask.
Is your love for me is the only thing that changed?
Is everything else about you just the same?
The answer was pretty obvious. And I didn’t want to hear it in words. The good part, the part I want to focus on is how we handled the conversation like two people with profound emotional maturity and genuine respect for each other. He reacted very gently to my dramatic confessions. And I was pretty rational considering the apparent ‘love of my life’ was telling me there’s no possibility of ‘us’.
I think we both caught each other off-guard that night. Maybe we both surprised each other in different, unpredictable ways. There was no complain, no resentment, on either end. Bittersweet is exactly what sums it up.
Life Has A Funny Way of Fixing Things
The one thing that I could not shake off was that despite being a not-in-my-life-anymore-ex-lover he gave me his time, candid conversation, respect, and acceptance. And if that doesn’t make for an amazing man, I don’t know what does. It reminded me that I was never wrong about him.
He’s a good man. He’s always been one. Our bitter end had made me question him and us. I questioned the relationship, his integrity, my own character—I questioned everything, every day. It was a horrible way of living.
One conversation, one year down the line set that record straight. It didn’t take away all my pain but it lessened it, slightly. And that counts for something. No matter how much anyone says it doesn’t matter, it does. I wouldn’t have wanted to live my life not knowing whether or not his feelings for me were real.
Just like that, a few honest words washed away a considerable portion out of a year’s worth of pain and resentment, restoring some faith and respect. Grateful would be too understated to express how I feel about that.
Reiterating: If you love someone, you tell them. And you go from there.
When I reached out, I knew there was next to no chance that he’d reciprocate. In fact, there was a chance that any remaining dignity of mine would blow up. I didn’t tell him to guilt-trip him nor was I being cheesy. I told him because I needed to. I wanted him to know. Even if we did nothing about it, I tried.
You know how they say trying and regretting is better than regretting without trying? So yeah, I stood up for what I wanted. If I hadn’t, I would’ve spent a lifetime wondering. Knowing is better—even if doesn’t turn out to be what you wanted.
We wished each other well (sans any resentment) and went back to our lives, almost immediately after that conversation.
To be honest, the reality of this was far better than any script I could ever have imagined. I think it liberated me in ways I didn’t know I needed.
Love needs to be let out. Mark Sloan was absolutely right. Glad I took his advice because I’ll be better for it.
I hope you do too.
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Previously Published on medium
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