No, not at all. When I made my confession, she told me she just wanted to be certain before she said it back because she had jumped the gun in the past and regretted it. Normally, in a situation such as this (i.e., having laid my cards out only to be met with…ambiguity), I would get kind of anxious or perhaps dejected. Like I said, though, I was pretty certain she loved me back; I could tell. She just didn’t know it yet. So I believed her 100% when she responded in kind the next week. She’s also not the type to throw me a bone out of pity.
I think if you wait until you genuinely feel it and then tell him so, he won’t have a doubt in his mind.
We’d been going out for less than a month, we were making out like the randy teenagers we were (are) and he paused. I said “what?” (read: make with the kissing!)
“I’ll tell you in a second.”
“Okay.”
…
“Don’t get scared by this but I think I’m falling for you.”
“Good!”
Kisses ensued. We didn’t start saying ‘I love you’ regularly until about the 8 month mark or so but since I moved interstate, we say it more regularly - I think we didn’t want to wear it out by always tacking it onto the end of conversations but now it’s part of our goodnights. That said, I think I’ve definitely had something for him since I met him. I’m just not a romantic. He got me pink roses on Valentine’s Day as more of a joke than for real.
He was in a bakery with a mutual friend who pointed to a jam biscuit with a heart cut out and squee’d; You should get it for F_PUB!
BF: If I presented her with that, she’d beat me with it!
Huh? My honest response wasn’t necessary? What should I have done “immediately”? Lied? Or just given him the silent treatment for a while? When would it have been ok for me to tell him?
I don’t remember how long we had been together - we were talking on the phone right before I was going to bed - he said, “sweet dreams”, and I said, “of you” - and he says, “I love you, too!” :rolleyes: So I guess yes, even though I didn’t actually say it. And no, he doesn’t listen much better after all these years.
He wanted to express how he felt about you. It’s just not something that requires an immediate response, especially not “Oh. Well I like you a lot but I’m not ready to say that about you yet.” So say it when you’re ready, or never - that doesn’t matter. But going into an immediate diatribe about how “love doesn’t come easily for you” would have struck me (were I in his position) as pretty self-indulgent.
Meh. Having been on the other side of that, and having my declaration met with a laundry list of reasons why she wasn’t ready to say the same…
I’m glad of it.
Means more now, because I know it’s not something she offers without thought. Much better that than a, “Oh, sure, I love you too,” from someone who isn’t sure at all.
Why would you want anything other than honesty from someone about that?
You’re the first person I’ve ever encountered who believes that saying “I love you” to someone for the first time doesn’t warrant a response. To each their own, I suppose.
Oh, now I see: you jumped to the “self-indulgent diatribe” conclusion because I didn’t feel it necessary to include a verbatim transcription of exactly what I said and the order in which I said it, accompanied by a description of each nonverbal cue I got from him. A classic case of messageboarditis … I should have recognized it sooner!
What you describe would be pretty self-indulgent. Luckily for both my SO and me, my reaction was not – despite your assumptions and prejudices.
He said it first but knew that I wasn’t ready to say it back.
He was at my apartment one night, went to leave, turned around, came back to me and whispered “I love you” in my ear and then left without waiting for me to say anything. A couple of days later we were laying in my bed again, and I snuggled up to him and whispered “I love you too”. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile quite like that night, before or since.
We didn’t say it at the same time, but it wasn’t far apart. She said it to me on a thursday night my first quarter of college. We were already staying together a lot, and spending a lot of time together, and we’d known eachother for years. She told me, but I didn’t hear it. I was behind her and drinking and she was a little bit gone. The next day, I told her because I was going to tell her before, it’s just that some things are hard to articulate during drunkenness.
It was perfectly fine with her once we figured out who said what when…
We did. We were talking about something, telling jokes, when all of a sudden he turned the conversation sappy: “That’s one thing I love about you…” I don’t remember what he said after that; I was too caught up on him using that fifth word. We met playing an MMO, and at the time we were only a couple months in to really getting to know each other. There was very obviously something developing between us, but I thought at best we were at the “we definitely like each other” stage.
Once the word was used, though, it was as good as done. A few days later, as we were saying good night, he said, “I love you.” I said it back right away. We giggled together for about five minutes, and it was a while longer before we actually parted ways that night.
Not really, I knew he cared about me. I was pretty sure he loved me, too. When he said it, it was completely natural and not forced. And I was a bit self-conscious about it being out there, but still fairly sure he would say it soon.
Team of Scientists and Delores Reborn: Thanks for the follow-up/assurances. I think he’ll believe that I mean it, I just worry about stuff like this. I don’t want to screw up!
Hajario: No harm, no foul. And good luck with your own situation.
I have a feeling that I’ll wind up doing something very similar … though I might snuggle up to his bar stool.
You know, my SO and I had a moment like that the other weekend: we were play-wrestling, and he accidentally called me by his dog’s name (“Tara, stop it!”). I pretended to be all hurt and offended, and while pretending to apologize he said, “Well, I love Tara, right?” I absolutely noticed his choice of words, but was afraid that it was unintentional so I just let it go. I mentioned it to him after he told me that he loved me, though, because he said he almost told me that weekend.
I said it as he was trying to throw me in the Gulf of Mexico in October. He didn’t say it to me until Christmas. It was the best gift ever; we were married six months later to the day.
Well, apparently Phlosphr was right: ever since my SO said those three little words I’ve been doing a lot of thinking (how could I not?), and the other day I realized that I do feel the same already.
