planning mode
dating scene
You've been in a relationship for a moment and are pretty sure about your feelings. You're in love and you're dying to tell that person, but you don't want to be the first one to say it and you're quite sure that given the right moment, they will admit their feelings. A few weeks or even a month has gone by and they haven't said anything. Afraid that you are going to burst, you say those 3 magic words–I love you, only to hear back those 2 dreaded ones, thank you.
What is that? Why would anyone say thank you to someone who just told said I love you? Idiot that I was, I kept repeating those words every chance I could knowing that I was probably hearing incorrectly and that soon they would respond in kind. Nope, it did not happen that way at all.
However, what did happen is that after a while my feelings begin to change. I didn't want to be with someone who didn't love me back, or at the very least did not have the common decency to tell me how they felt about me. It reminds me of the movie ‘Ghost' when Demi Moore kept telling Patrick Swayze "I love you" and he would respond with "ditto". That would not work for me.
A few months later I discovered why my boyfriend never said those words. He told me that he thought I loved him more than he loved me. Ouch! But when he voiced this opinion to me, I laughed. I mean I actually laughed out loud. I told him that yes; months earlier that probably were true, but I no longer felt the same way. Do you want to know what his response was? After looking a little hurt, he finally said those words I was dying to hear. The problem is that I wanted to hear them back then. I no longer cared and eventually the relationship ended.
The point that I'm making is not that he should have said I love you if he did not mean it, but that if he did not feel the same way, then he should have been honest with me. That way it gives me the opportunity to either decide to ride it out hoping that eventually he will fall in love with me or to move on. His pride or ego would not let him share those words with me until it was too late and I no longer cared.
Saying the words I love you is a big step and for most people it's like they have actually taken a knife, cut a little piece of their heart and handed it to you. So if you're trying to play macho or are taking for granted that the person whom loves you will never leave you no matter if you say those words or not, think again. Be careful. Your pride might eventually be the only thing you have remaining from that relationship.
