Should You Confess Your Feelings to an Online Crush?

Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash

Forgive me if I sound old-fashioned, but I’m just going to be honest here. If you’re interacting with someone only or mostly online, I don’t think you should be confessing your love for them just yet. This is because it’s really hard to know a person if most or all your communications are online.

I know, I know. You have a connection. You know what you feel. You know it’s love. All of this may be true, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s really easy for people to hide who they truly are behind a computer screen.

Even if you two have a connection and you have real feelings for them, you won’t know if it’s really them you have feelings for or just the online persona they’ve created until you meet in person.

Instead of confessing feelings, I offer you this suggestion. Why not try confessing a desire to bring your relationship into the real world? Why not try deepening the relationship by interacting more in public?

To help you out with this, I’m providing a list of 10 messages you could send your online crush.

10 Messages to Send an Online Crush to Move Your Interactions to the Real World

1. “I really like talking to you. Do you think we could meet in person?”

   Plain and simple. You don’t confess your feelings, but you do state something you enjoy about your interactions with your crush. And then you follow that up with a question asking them to meet.
   
   If they’ve also enjoyed talking to you, they’ll most likely be happy to continue talking to you in person. In fact, they’ll probably be glad you were willing to bring the topic up first.

2. “Since we get along so well online, do you think it would be a good idea for us to meet?”

   Here, you’re not asking your crush to meet you in person yet. You’re just asking them if they think it would be a good idea. This takes some of the pressure off them and allows them to just consider how they would feel meeting you in person. If they reply in the positive, you should definitely make plans to meet as soon as possible.

3. “You know, I’ve noticed that we’ve been talking a lot online lately, and I’ve really enjoyed it. I was just wondering, have you ever thought about what it would be like if we met in person?”

   This message is similar to the previous one, but it’s more hypothetical. Here, you’re asking your crush if they’ve ever even considered meeting you in person. If they say they have and they’ve had a positive experience with what they’ve imagined, you can move into actually asking them to meet.
   
   If you’re on the shier side or if you’re just really nervous about asking your crush to meet you in person, this is the message to go with.

4. “You know, I find it really easy to talk to you. I think we should meet in person. What do you say?”

   This is a message for the bolder ones among you. Here, you’re not asking for your crush’s opinion first. Instead, you’re stating yours and then asking if they’re in agreement. It’s a riskier move because you don’t yet know how they’ll respond, but your boldness might just be the push your crush needs to agree to meet.

5. “You know, after all the great conversations we’ve had online, I’ve been wondering what it would be like to talk in person. I think we should meet. What do you think?”

   With this message, in addition to including a little of the boldness in #4, you’re telling your crush that you’ve been thinking about meeting them in person. When you just ask them if they would like to meet or if they’ve thought about it, they don’t necessarily know that you’ve been thinking about it, too. You could have just typed that message on a whim.
   
   But if you send them a message like this, it lets them know you’ve also considered what it would be like to meet in person. It may make them feel comforted or reassured to know this has been on your mind, and they may be more likely to respond positively as a result.

6. “I know we’ve been talking for a while, but I’ve been too nervous to bring this up before. Do you think we should meet in person?”

   This message makes you seem more vulnerable, which may or may not be comfortable for you because it forces you to show your weakness. But your crush might actually like that you’re being so open about your feelings. This may endear you to them, prompting them to want to meet this person who’s comfortable showing their sensitive side.

7. “You know, you’re really funny. I bet you’d be even funnier in person. What do you say we try meeting?”

   This is a more playful message. You can replace the words “funny” and “funnier” with any quality that endears your crush to you. The point is to let them know you like this quality and think it would be even more pronounced in person.
   
   Then you ask them to meet, the idea being you want to see if your theory proves true. But you don’t have to explain that last part to them. They should be able to get that on their own.

8. “After all the time we’ve spent talking online, I find myself longing to hear your voice. What do you say we meet so I can hear it in person?”

   This is a message for the flirtier among you. If you and your online crush have a flirtier or more light-hearted relationship, this is a message you might want to consider sending. But if you don’t think your crush would respond well to a message like this, don’t send it. Go for something more neutral.

9. “You know, I always look forward to talking to you online. But I don’t want to just talk to you online anymore. I’d like us to meet in person. Do you think we should?”

   With this message, you’re saying that you enjoy your online interactions with your crush but you’re not satisfied with them. You want more. This is also a bolder message like the one in #4, but the question at the end is a little lighter. Even though you’ve stated your opinion before asking for your crush’s, you’re still curious about how they feel. You’re not just looking for their agreement.
   
   Additionally, you can say, “I’d like to meet you in person” instead of “I’d like us to meet in person” if you want to make your message more personal. It lets your crush know that you’re really interested in meeting them and getting to know them, hinting that you’re hoping for more than friendship.

10. “I know we’ve enjoyed talking online and I know we’ve been doing that as friends. But I don’t want to stay just friends. I think we should meet. What do you think?”

    This is probably as close as you should come to revealing your feelings to your online crush. It takes the desire for more mentioned in #9 to the next level. And here you’re also showing how seriously you’re taking the idea of starting a relationship by telling them you’d like to meet in person.
    
    If your crush reciprocates your feelings, they’ll most likely admire your honesty in a message like this. And they’ll most likely give you a positive response.
    
    But be very careful with this message. If your crush wasn’t prepared for you to say anything like this or if they don’t feel the same way, they may not want to meet you in person, knowing you’d be going into the meeting with certain expectations.
    
    I think it would be better to send them a more neutral message asking them to meet just so you can see where things go. You should only send a message like this if you have a fairly good idea that your crush wants a relationship as much as you do.

Final Thoughts

For the record, these are all just suggestions. You can use them word-for-word, change them to suit your situation better, or let them inspire your own messages. And after you’ve gotten to know your crush better in real life and find that your feelings for them are still strong or even stronger, then you can decide how you want to confess your feelings to them.

In the event that you can’t meet your crush in real life yet because, say, they live in another country, at least try to video chat with them so you can have access to some of those cues that are so necessary to really know a person. I think it would be ok to reveal your feelings via video chat, but you should chat at least a few times before coming clean.

And because I know how hard it can be to confess your feelings for someone in person, if you insist on doing it online, through texting, or using other technology, this post might help. As I always say, at the end of the day, it’s your life. So, you make the final decision about what you do with it.

Now it’s your turn. Do you think people should confess feelings to an online crush or wait to meet them in person first? Or, if you’ve ever confessed feelings to an online crush, how did it go for you?

~ Ashley C.

Last updated: August 23, 2023