What Do You Do When Things Are Awkward After Confessing Your Feelings?

Photo by Angèle Kamp on Unsplash

So, you found the courage to confess your feelings to your crush. But now things are awkward between you. There are two main reasons this would be the case: your crush didn’t reciprocate your feelings or they did but you two don’t know where to go from here.

What should you do in each of these situations? Let’s go through one at a time.

If Your Crush Didn’t Reciprocate Your Feelings

When anyone confesses their love to someone else, their hope is that the someone else will feel the same way. It’s really hard to find the courage to confess, only to find out that your crush sees you as just a friend. And if that crush was already a friend—especially a best friend—things can get awkward fast.

Things are awkward for you now because you know that your crush doesn’t have feelings for you, but you still have feelings for them. It’s hard for you to put your feelings aside whenever you see them, knowing those feelings are floating out there in space instead of safe in your heart where you probably wish you had left them.

And things are awkward for your crush because they don’t know what to do with your feelings either. They just know they can’t return them. They may even feel guilty that they can’t return them. And you may feel guilty that you burdened this person with your feelings. The guilt is the main thing making things awkward here.

My advice would be, if things are too awkward, limit the amount of time you spend together. If you’re not good friends, this shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. Interact only when necessary, and when you do interact, keep those interactions as brief as possible.

If you are good friends, though, you’ll have to find other friends to hang out with, at least for a while—until the crush passes. (If you’re in need of some advice on how to move on from an unrequited crush, this post may help.) You two may be able to get to a good place again, but right now distance is what you really need. And if your friend doesn’t understand why you’re spending so much time apart, make sure you tell them so they don’t feel hurt or confused.

In both situations, whether your crush is a good friend or not, also try to keep your interactions as light as possible. Don’t discuss emotions or feelings. Don’t discuss your confession. At some point in the future, that might be a possibility. But right now, you both know what happened. Your goal is to move forward out of this awkward state. To do that, try to focus on more neutral subjects.

But if the awkwardness between you and your crush isn’t too bad, you might actually be able to continue hanging out. Even so, keep the conversations light for now. And if you need more guidance on whether you two need distance or not, you can check out this post.

If Your Crush Did Reciprocate Your Feelings

Theoretically, this should be a cause for celebration, not awkwardness. The thing is, after both people confess their feelings to each other, things can be awkward because they don’t know how to proceed. Maybe neither person has ever dated before, so they’re unsure about their next step.

Should they go on a date? How fancy should this date be? Is hanging out enough? And if they were close friends, weren’t they already hanging out before? How are things going to be different now?

I think the potential for awkwardness in this case is greater if the two people were already good friends. Figuring out how to turn a comfortable friendship into something more romantic will require a lot of patience, along with trial and error. But it has been done successfully before, so if this is the situation you find yourself in, there’s hope for you.

But there can absolutely be awkwardness even if the two people weren’t good friends before. Maybe, again, neither one has dated before. Or maybe one has and the other hasn’t. Or maybe one just got out of a bad relationship and they’re having trouble finding their footing again.

Maybe one person is having trouble trusting people again. Or maybe one or both people haven’t dated in a long time. Or maybe they’re both just nervous at starting a new relationship. As long as we’re dealing with feelings, there’s always potential for things to be awkward.

My advice in both situations is to go slow. You don’t have to rush things just because you have all these loving feelings fluttering inside you. Take time to enjoy the romance.

Talk on the phone. Text each other. Spend meaningful time together when phones and other distractions are nowhere in sight. You don’t have to get everything perfect on the first date. You just have to keep trying until the flow becomes smooth.

That’s when you know you’ve found true love. The flutters are still there, but the awkwardness is gone.

What If They Say Nothing?

There is actually a third reason that things might be awkward between you and your crush after you confess to them—they might have responded vaguely or not at all. This still counts as non-reciprocation, though, so it’s more like a sub-reason of the first reason. But I wanted to say a few things about this particular type of non-reciprocation here.

I’ve talked often on this site about how painful it is when your crush leaves things open after you confess your feelings to them. I think this is the most painful response to a love confession because it isn’t a response. It’s a blank stare or unanswered text after a heartfelt confession.

I often advise that you not waste time on someone who refuses to even acknowledge your love confession, let alone respond to it. This person has just shown that they can’t be trusted with the most fragile part of you—your heart. It’s not worth wasting time and emotions on someone like that.

But if the person didn’t say anything because they need more time to process, make sure you give them that time. Try not to assume that they’re choosing not to answer because they’re too cowardly to give you a response. If they’re a good friend or someone you know to be a good person, ask if they need more time. And if they do, then give them more time.

What to Take Away

A love confession is usually the first step before starting a relationship. True, people who are attracted to each other can start dating and getting to know each other before they confess feelings. In fact, I describe in this post why I think that’s a good idea if those two people aren’t already good friends.

But if a love confession is to be made before dating, there’s always going to be potential for some awkwardness afterwards. If the love is unreciprocated, guilt on both sides can cause both people to be unsure of how to act. And if the love is reciprocal, things can still be awkward if one or both people are unsure of how to move forward.

The bottom line is that, as long as feelings are involved, there’s potential for awkwardness. But don’t be afraid of it. Learn from it. The awkwardness will teach you things about love and life if you’ll let it. Just don’t let the fear of awkwardness keep you from confessing your love to someone.

Now I turn it to you. What do you think people should do about any awkwardness that follows a love confession? Let me know in the comments.

~ Ashley C.

Last updated: February 7, 2023