Feelings I had for my classmate were obviously one-sided (pretty sure of it), so I made a reasonable decision to never confess to not make things awkward. In a few years since we graduated I finally moved on, although I never loved anyone this much since.
Yet all this time I had a desire to tell her about them. I would definitely want to know if someone loved me this much ever. Would she? I don’t know. I don’t even know if she is in a relationship right now or not.
I would really want to cite some scientific study that “Over 80% of girls have their self-confidence lifted after being told they were secretly admired (p<0.05)”, but can’t find one.
Don’t do it.
As a general rule, this is a terrible idea. If there are exceptions, it’s clear from your comments that thus is not one of them.
This entire desire is to boost your ego - to validate that your unrequited ‘love’ (crush) made her life better, because you’re such a great guy.
Lwt it go, and grow up a bit more.
You don’t love her. You barely know her. It’s been years, you have no idea what she thinks, what she’s done, what she would do, etc.
What you love is some ideas you have about her.
You never dated her. You never saw what she was like outside of class, at home, at work, with her friends. You don’t know if she’s honest, or cruel. You don’t know what her political beliefs are, or her religion. Would she kick a puppy? Is she an addict? Is she selfish or generous? Is she clean or slovenly? Does she have a partner? Does she have kids? Is she even hetero?
This is all aside from the fact that you’re imagining a connection that you know isn’t there. Telling her has nothing to do with her and everything to do with your own ego.
This way of thinking with the fantasy of loving someone you don’t really know and the idea that your feelings years later are important enough to barge into her life with a confession of love without even finding out who she actually is and what her circumstances are… This is a red flag that even in the incredibly unlikely event that she’s single and into you, you are not going to be good for her.
You seem young and infatuated, probably not a good idea either way though.
The only time I have told someone about feelings I had long ago is when we started hanging out again and they were open to reciprocate. Not an out of the blue cold call.
To be clear, in this context NOT telling them would be the wrong decision. Very, different from OPs situation.
No
I think there are a lot of things at play here. Ultimately I don’t think you should, though.
The fact that you still want to tell them is suspicious. I think you’re not being honest with yourself. Your ulterior end game is a hope of some type of reciprocation. You haven’t moved on.
Just because (assuming it’s even true) a statistical model of a gender says “they probably would like it” is irrelevant. Would this individual like to hear it? It sounds like you don’t know. If you don’t know them well enough to anticipate how they would react, then I think it’s pretty safe to say they don’t know you well enough to receive the message “I used to love you” in a way that could ever come out as a net benefit to them.
I empathize immensely regarding your position. But as a 3rd party observer, don’t do it.
although I never loved anyone this much since.
Attraction /= love. You did not love her.
Yet all this time I had a desire to tell her about them.
You have a desire to have your attraction to her validated. You are essentially cat calling her but in ultra slow motion.
I would really want to cite some scientific study that “Over 80% of girls have their self-confidence lifted after being told they were secretly admired (p<0.05)”, but can’t find one.
Ya cuz in real life it would be “over 99% of women have experienced mental anguish from being told they were secretly admired.”
Don’t insert yourself into her life, or any woman’s life for that matter, just so you can wag your attraction to her in her face. It’s categorically in the same bucket as unsolicited dick picks. You’re doing it for yourself, not her.
Attraction /= love. You did not love her.
I am pretty much sure my feelings fell under most common definitions of “love”. I wonder what makes you think otherwise.
You have a desire to have your attraction to her validated.
Maybe that is a part of it, but I also want for her to be validated. I, for instance, would be if someone told me this.
Don’t insert yourself into her life, or any woman’s life for that matter, just so you can wag your attraction to her in her face.
From the tone of your post, I feel like you had a pretty bad day. I’m sorry for whatever happened to you, get better soon.
I wonder what makes you think otherwise.
Life experience. You have lot of growing up to do.
Do you mean the only factor you considered is my then-age?
I can testify with great confidence that I wasn’t remarkably attracted to her in a sexual way. In that regard I found her moderately cute, somewhat pretty, and a few girls and boys of our age much more so. My feelings were primarily platonic. They developed over the years and consisted mostly of platonic affection, the romantic attraction was the consequence of it.
You’re self aware enough to ask the questions but lack the humility to accept the answers.
OP is def looking for bias-confirmation that if they do this it’s all going to magically be perfect and solve all their sadness.
typical internet nonsense
You provided no answer but “my experience tells me so”. No explanation, no proof, nothing. IDK, my experience tells me to reject bare appeals to authorutily, where even the level and source of your authority (age, sociological education maybe) wasn’t something you bothered to explain.
I provided you answers, you’re just not emotionally intelligent enough to recognize them.
Listen.
Don’t tell her.
For your sake.
Good luck. You, specifically, are gonna need it.
Other people do not know how you feel. It may well be love. But it may not be worth bringing up to her, she may get the wrong impression like others here. I wish society encouraged honesty, but I don’t know what’s best here.
K but I don’t need to telepathically know how they feel when by their own words I can see that they’re conflating attraction with love.
You seem to want to help OP. But you’re actually reenforcing a very unhealthy mindset. Given your admission that you don’t know what’s best here it is rather irresponsible of you to baselessly undermine the consensus.
Some of the people here are family men who actually do know what we’re talking about. To falsely equate your “I don’t know” with experience driven advice, is a disservice to OP.
Men need to be more honestly with themselves about when they’re just being horny.
In understand and agree with what you are saying all in all but you are being a little too harsh in your tone and maybe also in some assumptions about OP, I think. The best advice comes in a form that is digestible for the recipient… If giving advice is what you are doing and not telling OP off, that is. Anyways, as I said, I agree with you but I just felt your were being almost a little unfair 😌
Read back. I wasn’t harsh until OP responded disingenuously.
As far as this person. I specifically dislike when people play devils advocate while knowing they don’t actually know enough. Especially when they’re reenforcing toxic male behaviours towards women.
The person I’m replying to is genuinely doing harm to OP by feeding into their confirmation bias. Lets not forget I’m telling OP not to do something that could have life changing social consequences… especially if they go about it in the socially inept way they present themselves.
Some of the people here are family men who actually do know what we’re talking about. To falsely equate your “I don’t know” with experience driven advice, is a disservice to OP.
Kindly fuck off with your assumptions. When I was young, I chose not to have children because my parents were unable to raise me without traumatic fear and pain, and I never wanted anyone else to feel that.
I love someone, but we are not together and likely never will be.
Would you be upset if someone told you that you don’t love your wife?
Stop pretending to know things you cannot know. Your experience is not everyone’s.
Would you be upset if someone told you that you don’t love your wife?
You? No. My father? yes.
The fact that you think I’m assuming things about your life shows that you’re reacting defensively instead of maturely considering what’s being presented to you.
This person’s advice is comprehensive and correct. You need to accept it. What you’re feeling is not love. Love is something that is built up over years of being in a relationship. No relationship, no love. If what you’re feeling is as strong as you claim, then the correct word would be infatuation, or possibly obsession.
You’re going to come off as extremely creepy to her. Let it go.
Genuinely think you’re arguing about semantics with the love/attraction thing. Like, you can profess your love to someone despite no romantic relationship existing yet.
It’s honestly irrelevant what term OP uses to describe their feelings.
Though I do agree with the 2nd paragraph.
Love is something that is built up over years of being in a relationship. No relationship, no love.
What?
From the Encyclopædia Britannica:
love, an emotion characterized by strong feelings of affection for another arising out of kinship, companionship, admiration, or benevolence. In a related sense, “love” designates a benevolent concern for the good or welfare of others. The term is also used to refer to sexual attraction or erotic desire toward another. Love as an individual emotion has been studied in several scientific disciplines, including psychology, biology and neuroscience, anthropology, and sociology.
Romeo and Juliet never got to live as a couple. Were they not in love?
We knew each other for 11 years, were bonded by various class activities. I believe that’s enough for the proper and pure feelings to form.
tips hat
Ackchually milady, the eshiclopedia brihtannika says you’re wrong! Checkmate lib
laughs in incel
Whatever you say, brother. We’re only here to provide advice. And so far, everyone’s advice seems to be on the same page. It’s your decision whether to take it.
I will however point out that, in fact, the modern consensus is that Romeo and Juliet were not in love and that it was, at best, a hormone-driven highschool crush that lasted less than a week
You’re… quoting an encyclopedia. On matters of romance and affection. You’re not coming across as “in love”; you’re coming across as infatuated. You’re in love with the idea of her, and the even more abstract idea of being in a relationship with her. I can just about guarantee you that reality is unlikely to fully match what you have in mind.
And… well, taken with your other replies and apparent reluctance to integrate and/or accept the rather consistent gist of the replies you’re getting, you’re starting to give off a wee bit of an incel vibe.
But anyways:
This isn’t a matter you can logically litigate. Human emotion is simply not a clean, cut-and-dried domain.
My further advice to you would be to focus on human connection first. Writ large, treat dating and romance as a side quest, not a primary quest. Focus on befriending people, and deepening interpersonal connection before anything else.
I don’t know what the nuance of the situation is, of course, but it sounds like you may have the opportunity to rekindle a friendship, and then see if it goes anywhere as things evolve. If you push really hard on the romance angle, especially if this is a very out-of-the-blue thing for her, you’re very likely to squick her out and nuke any chance of friendship, let alone anything more than that. Treat her as a human, and a friend, and then see where things go.
You’re… quoting an encyclopedia. On matters of romance and affection.
Well, someone was disagreeing with me on the definition of a word. What else was I supposed to quote? A dictionary?
I can just about guarantee you that reality is unlikely to fully match what you have in mind.
Not sure what you mean. We knew each other quite closely.
And… well, taken with your other replies and apparent reluctance to integrate and/or accept the rather consistent gist of the replies you’re getting, you’re starting to give off a wee bit of an incel vibe.
I… Don’t understand. The only replies I argued with tried to redefine love as someone that may not happen outside of an established relationship, a definition seemingly not familiar nor to Wikipedia, nor Britannica, nor Shakespeare, nor Dostoevsky.
Could you quote the parts where I’m giving “incel vibes”, please?
but it sounds like you may have the opportunity to rekindle a friendship, and then see if it goes anywhere as things evolve. If you push really hard on the romance angle, especially if this is a very out-of-the-blue thing for her, you’re very likely to squick her out and nuke any chance…
What part of “one-sided” could you miss? I’m not looking into meeting her again. She now lives thousands of kilometres away and definitely never liked me. My question had no hidden meaning: the “confession” was simply a matter of curiosity satisfaction, a reassuring compliment, and a way to close unanswered questions, as every person has a right to know of everything related to them in the highest possible extent.
I’m not here to debate you. I am here to provide advice from my lived experience.
Take it or leave it - this isn’t my monkey, and it’s not my circus.
No it is weird and creepy.
The person you think you loved doesn’t even exist anymore and it is highly likely they never did.
You had a childhood crush. Leave it to the sweet memory of the past.
The person you think you loved doesn’t even exist anymore and it is highly likely they never did.
Entirely depends on if the person is chill and can laugh at it or if they will freak the fuck out and never talk to you again.
Also, you had a crush. You were not in a relationship with this person. You did not love them.
Honestly, if this is something you really want to do, I don’t think it’s a bad idea, but you do need to be careful.
Don’t make it creepy. Don’t use the word “love”. You did not love her, you had a crush on her. Keep it simple. Keep it friendly.
Something like “Hey, (something) just reminded me of you, and I wanted to say hi. I don’t know if you ever realized it, but I had a little crush on you in school. Hope your doing well!”
No romantic poetry, no talk of love or soul mates. You just throw it out there, and let them control the narrative. If they never respond, you never follow up. If you talk as friends, then be friends. If they secretly had a crush on you this whole time and want to get together, congratulations!
Best answer by far, in my opinion.
Not a good idea imo. I’ve never heard of any girl/woman reacting positively to such situation. I myself and many of my female friends experienced it before - even if we managed to be polite and just laugh it off, privately we agreed it was uncomfortable, sad and rather pathetic, some of us plainly admitted it’s creepy, gives off stalker vibes.
I’ve seen it go both ways. Some reveal feelings they also had. Some are creeped out and let it put a whole different perspective on your whole history together. If you decide to tell them, start by saying that your feelings are in the past and that you don’t expect anything to happen, you just felt you needed to share.
The problem with sharing now is it comes off as insincere — why, after all this time, is NOW suddenly the time to share?
because you’re stupid and you still cling to this memory as a deep truth, rather than a childish crush.
A lot of folks are like this. They would rather live in a idealized memory and cherish it rather than realize how dumb it is to do that.
And that in fact, this person you loved in high school is most likely nothing like they were then, and probably never was going to measure up to the ideal of them you were ‘in love’ with in your head.
Fantasy is way way more emotionally powerful than reality. It never gets checked by human flaws, limits, and misunderstanding.
I think I’d remove the “stupid” bit though; a lot of people who live their fantasy life in their head seem to be much happier in general than those of us who hold up such things against a backdrop of critical thinking.
They don’t, however, seem to learn from their mistakes or improve their lot in life, except by accident. But they’re generally quite happy at the expense of the people around them they invariably impact by remembering what never was. Some people will abandon them to their fiction after attempting to help them escape it, but others will enable them, trying to create a semblance of the reality that would never happen naturally. See the US government for a fascinating case study of how this plays out.
You can’t do love by yourself. What you experienced may seem profound, but it can’t be anything but myopic because it’s all in your imagination. This is like falling in love with a fictional character or a celebrity.
It’s the difference between sex and masturbation.
Personally I wouldn’t drop a love bomb on anyone out of the blue. But if you’re feeling the urge to reconnect why not try something less intense, like “Hey dreamgirl you just randomly crossed my mind, I used to have such a crush on you back in the day, what’s going on in your world?”
The bus you avoided yesterday you do not throw yourself under today.
Nah, she was a awesome person.
Maybe you are the bus.
