Tell Him, Tell Him, Tell Him, Tell Him Right Now

I have a history of falling in love with my best guy friends. I grew up with twin older brothers, so my interest in fart jokes and innate ability to kick back with the boys naturally attracted many males. Unfortunately, the males always looked to me as the best friend and never as the future bride.

By Lauren

It started in the fourth grade. That particular situation lasted until the middle of 8^th. In high school it happened again. First with Jordan, then with Joey. When I got to college it was Ben.

I am not one to keep my feelings to myself. I always need to know. So, after growing sick of giving these boys love advice to use on other ladies, I always ended up blurting out my own feelings. A lot of people I know always wonder how I 1) am constantly finding myself in situations like that, and 2) could ever just come out and lay my heart on the table. I understand their concerns – women have always been taught to let the guys take the lead, to make the guy chase you and to play hard to get. But that was just never my game.

Coming clean to someone is never easy. It makes things awkward and it runs a huge risk of losing that person forever. For me, though, it is a risk worth taking. A necessary risk, even. We all convince ourselves that losing our crush as a friend is the worst possible outcome. I disagree. I think missing out on a potentially wonderful opportunity is the worst possible outcome.

I don’t understand the girls who sit there and watch their crush/friend date and fall in love with someone else. They resign themselves to the fact that the boy “just doesn’t look at them that way,” but they also never gave the boy a chance.

Maybe he was afraid to say something. Maybe he never thought of you that way. Maybe he doesn’t have the same feelings, but how would you ever know if you didn’t try? Is spending the rest of your life pining away for someone secretly really the best option? Losing a friend is never fun or easy, but neither is spending your days getting hurt as the guy you love is totally ignoring you. You have to throw caution to the wind and just do it.

I am totally going to sound like my cliché’ obsessed mother right now, but this whole situation is like tearing off a band-aid: it may sting for a little while, but the pain will go away and the wound will heal.