Why Is It So Hard to Make a Love Confession?
Photo by Fiona Murray on Unsplash
Happy New Year!
As I write this, the New Year is still young and filled with hope and possibilities. One of those possibilities is that you enter a new relationship. So, I wanted to start the year off talking about a crucial step before doing so: making a love confession.
In this post, I’m going to talk about why it’s so hard to admit you like someone. I think confessing your love for someone would make most people’s top ten list of hardest things to do in life, if not top five. Why is it so hard, you ask? Here are six reasons.
6 Reasons It’s So Hard to Confess Your Love for Someone
It forces you to confront your feelings.
Many people spend their lives avoiding their feelings. They stay busy. They’re always running from one activity to the next. They distract themselves with TV, work, social media, and outings with friends and family.
But they rarely take time to reflect. They rarely take time to look deeper. Unless something major happens—like a pandemic or other life-altering event—they’re content to live their lives on surface level.
But when the time comes for you to confess your love for someone, you have to stop running and confront your feelings. You have to get honest with yourself about how you feel about this person.
You have to figure out whether this is someone you’re deeply in love with or whether you just like them as more than a friend. You have to ask yourself if you really want to pursue a relationship with them now, should they reciprocate.
If you’re not used to looking deeper, this aspect of making a love confession might be hard for you. But you can prepare yourself for it by practicing the art of introspection.
Journaling is a great way to get started with this. By journaling, you come face-to-face with your thoughts and feelings, even some you didn’t know were there.
Journaling can help you get a clearer idea of how you feel about everything in life and how you feel about this one person in particular. But however you choose to go deeper, know that this is an important step before confessing your love for someone.It forces you to be vulnerable.
Once you’re aware of how you feel, making a love confession requires you to put those feelings out in the open.
If you’re not used to looking deeper, I’m sure that alone was hard enough. But now you have to take those deep feelings and release them into the world where you can no longer control them or the impact they may have and how all that will affect you.
Not only that, but being vulnerable exposes you to the risk of (emotional) injury in the form of rejection (more on that in #5). Most people try to avoid this risk, but especially those who have a fragile ego or low self-esteem.
(If you know you struggle with either of these issues, you might want to work on building up your mental and emotional strength before you start confessing your love to anyone. Issues like these can make it hard to sustain a healthy relationship.)
It’s true that it’s much safer to keep your feelings locked inside. You can keep an eye on them there and they can’t do anyone any harm—anyone except you, that is. Because if your feelings for this person don’t go away, you’ll have to live with those powerful emotions every time you see them and every time you think about them.
Also, if you never confess, you may have to watch this person go off and be with someone else. And all the while you’ll think, “That could have been me if I could have just found the courage to be vulnerable.”
It’s ok to be vulnerable. In fact, it’s necessary if you want to live life to the fullest. No one ever did anything great without being vulnerable. Confessing your love for someone requires you to go outside your comfort zone. But that’s where most of the fun in life is to be had.It forces you to put someone you care about on the spot.
I imagine that if someone is confessing their love for someone else, it’s because they care about this person. And when you care about someone, you actively try to avoid hurting them or making them uncomfortable. It’s not always possible, but you do your best.
By confessing your love for someone, you have to go against this protective instinct. You have to put this person in an uncomfortable situation, especially if they had no idea of your feelings for them.
If they knew, the situation will only be uncomfortable if they don’t feel the same way. But either way, both of you are going to be thrown outside your comfort zone, and that’s just something you have to accept.
Just know, if this person does have feelings for you, they may be shy about saying so. But if you confess, they may find the courage to as well. So, while saying how you feel may cause some temporary discomfort, in the long run it could save the two of you a lot of trouble.You may often try to wait for the “right moment.”
I know how romantic movies make it seem. Believe me, I’ve seen plenty of them. Somehow, the main characters manage to find a picturesque spot to reveal their feelings for each other and then fireworks go off or the sun sets in the background or snow starts falling. And I love it every time.
In reality, though, there will rarely be a “right moment” for you to confess your feelings for someone. There may be better and worse moments, just like there are better and worse ways. But if you’re looking for a perfect, picturesque moment to come clean, you may be waiting your entire life.
Really, the best time to tell someone how you feel is when you feel ready to tell them. And then you can either make a special point to tell them you have something to say and confess when you’re alone together, or you can tell them when you’re in the middle of a conversation and they’re actively responding.
Say, for instance, you’re talking to them about their favorite foods. You can ask them something like, “So, what kind of food would you like to eat on a first date?”
They’ll probably give you an honest answer and then ask, “Why?” Then you take a deep breath and say something like, “Because I’d like to go on a date with you someday. I like you.” And then wait for their response. (Don’t you get tingly just thinking about it?)
My only advice here would be not to tell them in a way you know they won’t respond to quickly. For example, if the person you’re confessing to doesn’t often check their email or respond to emails, don’t confess to them in an email. The same goes for texting and social media. For this confession, choose your crush’s preferred medium.
In my opinion, the best way to make a love confession is in person, though that is the most nerve-wracking way as well. But you can use whatever medium you know your crush will respond to. Believe me, you don’t want to be waiting unnecessarily long for a response after a confession like this.You risk rejection.
In this post, I talk about the possible responses an INFJ can expect after a confession of love. But, really, those are the responses anyone can expect after such a confession. (The advice I give there is more tailored to INFJs, though.)
One of the potential responses is reciprocation, of course. And if you’re making a love confession, that’s probably the one you most want. But some of the others are types of rejection, and no one likes to be rejected. Still, if you don’t take the risk, you’ll never know if this could have been the start of a beautiful love story.
One thing that helps take the sting out of this kind of rejection is to try not to take it too personally. Believe me, I know how difficult that can be.
It’s one thing when someone tells you not to take rejection personally when you’re applying for a new job or looking for an agent for a book. Then it’s your skill set or your work that wasn’t what someone was looking for. But that rejection doesn’t mean there’s anything inherently wrong with you as a person.
While people can and often do take these rejections personally, there’s nothing like getting rejected when your heart is on the line. Rejection in heart matters almost always makes you feel like you have been rejected as a human being.
You just offered your heart to someone, and they said they don’t want it. Now you feel like you’re not good enough for some reason—like there’s something wrong with you that makes you not worthy of this person’s love. That’s always wrong, but even knowing that doesn’t stop the thought from occurring.
If you haven’t learned not to take rejection personally, that thought can become recurrent and it can cause you to stop trying to put your heart out there. In fact, it can make you afraid to try new things or have new experiences altogether because you want to avoid feeling that way ever again.
What you have to remember at times like these is, once again, this person isn’t saying there’s anything inherently wrong with you. They’re just saying they don’t see you as a potential romantic partner for them.
They’re saying, in effect, “The qualities you have are not the ones I’m looking for in a romantic partner right now.” Nothing about that statement says there’s anything wrong with you.
I know that’s not what you want to hear when you’re convinced you’re perfect for each other, but remembering that you’re not the problem can help you heal from rejection faster. And if you need any further encouragement for continuing the search for love after rejection and heartbreak, check out this post.
Sometimes we have to risk a little pain to have beautiful experiences. If we dedicate our life to avoiding pain, we also dedicate it to avoiding all kinds of pleasure. So, why not risk rejection and see what happens? Remember, this person may end up telling you they like you back. And even if they don’t, this is another “what if” you can cross off your list.You risk changing the nature of what may have been a comfortable relationship.
Most likely, a person would only confess their love for someone they know well or have a close relationship with. Many times this is a friend. If you like the nature of your friendship, the idea of ruining it with a love confession probably terrifies you. You may think, “Since I don’t want to mess up the good thing we have going, I might as well not confess.”
The thing is, while friendship is beautiful, there’s something special and even sacred about romantic love. So, if you have the potential to turn a beautiful friendship into a beautiful romance, aren’t you willing to take that risk?
But then you may think, “What happens if we date and something goes wrong and now I’ve lost both my partner and my friend?” To that I would say, “What happens if you date and enjoy each other’s company so much that you get married and live happily ever after?”
You don’t know what will happen between the two of you in the future. So, why not stop worrying about what you don’t know and focus on now? Now you have the potential to create something beautiful with someone you care about. Focus on that.
And by the way, if you’re an INFJ trying to confess your love to a friend, this post may help.
Final Thoughts
I hope you now have a better understanding of why it’s so hard to make a love confession. In spite of all this, if you feel it’s worth pursuing a romantic relationship with someone, you’ll have to find the courage to confess if they don’t do it first.
Now I turn it to you. Why do you think it’s so hard to make a love confession?
~ Ashley C.
Last updated: January 29, 2024