5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Responding to a Love Confession
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When someone confesses their love to you, it can be hard to know how to respond if you’re not sure how you feel about them. I talk about that more in this post. But here I want to talk about how you can get clearer on how you feel about someone after they confess.
One way to get clarity is by asking yourself questions and then waiting for the answers. You don’t invent answers to questions like these. Since the answers are already inside you, all you have to do is listen for them.
It’s best to do this kind of introspection somewhere quiet, away from distractions and other people. And it might help you to write your thoughts down in a journal or something like that.
So, if you find yourself in the position of having to respond to someone’s love confession, take a moment to ask yourself the following five questions first.
5 Questions to Ask Yourself After Someone Confesses Their Love to You
How well do you know this person?
It’s hard to know whether you really love someone if you don’t know them well. If your only interactions are online or through texting, for instance, that doesn’t give your relationship much depth. Even if you talk about everything together, until you meet face-to-face, there will always be key facets of your relationship that are missing.
In this post, I mention how important it is to meet someone in person even if you feel a strong connection to them from a distance. (The advice there is written for INFJs, but it’s useful for anyone in a virtual relationship.) I believe your intuition can give you strong impressions about a person even without seeing them face-to-face, but it’s no replacement for the cues your intuition will give you when you see them in person.
If most or all of your interactions with someone have been virtual, you might want to see what they’re like in real life before you respond to their confession. Your intuition may have been right, but you won’t know for sure until you meet.
It has happened that people who connected deeply online didn’t feel the same connection when they met in person. Or maybe one person felt a connection while the other didn’t. But it has also happened that people who connected deeply online found their love only grew in person. It all depends. But only your real-life interactions will show you which outcome will be yours.
Still, your interactions don’t have to be exclusively virtual for you not to know someone well. Maybe you just met them a few days ago. Maybe your interactions have been short and shallow. Maybe you’re acquaintances and you know something about each other, but not much.
It’s important to consider how well you know this person before you respond to their confession. If you don’t know them well, it might be hard to say one way or the other how you feel because you don’t know them as a whole person. You only know certain aspects of their character. But sometimes that’s enough for you to know how you feel. If that’s the case, feel free to share your feelings with them.Do you need more time to get to know them before responding to their confession?
If you don’t know this person well enough to know how you feel about them romantically, tell them that. Tell them you’d like to get to know them better before you respond.
This isn’t a rejection, it’s just an admission that you’re not sure how you feel and you need more time to figure it out. You want to spend more time with them. You want to see if you can picture a romantic future together. If they’re a good-hearted person who genuinely cares about you, they won’t have a problem waiting for a response while you get to know each other better.
But don’t make them wait forever. If at any point you get the sense that you don’t like them that way and most likely never will, tell them as soon as you can. It’s not fair to make them wait for you if you don’t feel there’s potential for a relationship between you two.
Alternatively, as soon as you find yourself picturing your romantic future together and the picture fills you with joy, tell them that. Tell them the truth about your feelings once you know what the truth is.Do you already know how you feel about them?
Sometimes a love confession can throw us off. It can cause us to go blank or freeze. Everything we knew a moment before suddenly goes out the window, maybe even our name. That’s why it’s important to take a moment to consider how you really feel before responding.
The minute before this person confessed, you may have known how you felt about them. You may have known you had feelings for them, too, or you may have known you only saw them as a friend. But then they said those words. “I love you.”
If you don’t manage to hold onto your grip on reality, you’ll find you’ve suddenly forgotten how you felt—and probably many other things as well. That’s ok. Take a moment to reconnect to the present moment. Take a breath. Then consult your feelings as soon as they come back to you.
And when they do, voice them. Tell this person how you feel as clearly and simply as you can. And if you have to tell them you don’t feel the same way because that’s the truth, make sure to thank them before you respond.Do you need more time to process your feelings before responding?
It can also happen that you have feelings for this person but they’re all mixed up. Maybe you’re in love with someone else—maybe you’re even in a relationship with someone else—and now you have to figure out how you feel about this person who just confessed.
If that’s the case, tell this person that. Tell them you need time to process your feelings—process, not think about them. It’s best not to get the head involved in delicate matters of the heart like this.
Or maybe you never really thought about this person romantically before. Maybe you just enjoyed their company or conversation. Now that they’ve expressed a desire for more, you need to give them an honest answer. If you need time to figure out what that is, tell them.
And as I mentioned in #2, if they’re a good-hearted person, they’ll be willing to wait. But again, don’t make them wait too long.Would you really like to pursue a relationship with this person?
If you do like this person and now you know your feelings are mutual, the next logical question is, now what? What happens next?
Well, if you’re both up for it, you’ll probably start dating. But that doesn’t have to be the next step. Maybe you want to be honest with this person by telling them you like them, but at the same time you don’t feel ready for a relationship right now.
Maybe you just went through a bad breakup and you still need time to recover. Maybe your life is up in the air right now and you want to establish yourself more before dating someone. You don’t want to burden anyone else with that level of uncertainty.
There could be any number of reasons why you don’t want to start dating this person right away. Keep that in mind before you respond.
And if you do feel like you’re not ready to start a relationship with this person, talk about where you two will go from here. Will you remain friends? Will you tell this person they’re free to date other people? Do you want them to wait for you? These are all things to consider before responding to their confession.
Final Thoughts
As you can imagine, it’s hard to answer all these questions in just a few seconds. That’s why, if you need time to process what this person said, that’s the only response you should give until you’re sure how you feel about them.
But if you know right away, don’t make them wait for your response. Just tell them, even if you’re sure you don’t feel the same way. The sooner you tell them the truth, the sooner they can find a way to move on.
But if you do feel the same way, you’ve just found requited love. Congratulations! Please enjoy it responsibly.
Now I turn it to you. What questions do you think people should ask themselves before responding to a love confession?
~ Ashley C.
P.S. To everyone celebrating, Merry Christmas!
Last updated: August 23, 2023