Love Is In The Air

Well, it is almost Valentine’s Day. Wow, time sure flies by. Last February 14th seems like just yesterday. It was about 11:30p.m. on February 13th and I was talking to two of my friends—Sarah and Matt—on IM (Instant Messaging). Sarah was trying to convince me to tell Matt, our mutual friend, that I liked him. “You might be surprised,” she said. “Come on, it’s not that hard,” she beckoned. I had been so scared to tell anyone that I liked them as more than a friend since the sixth grade. You see, I liked this guy named Nathan and he said that he was flattered, but he did not think that his Dad, a preacher, would allow him to have a girlfriend. I was crushed, but not just because I liked him a lot, but because I had been rejected lots of times before that. And that day, I vowed that I would never tell a guy how I felt about him again unless he told me first. But Matt was different. We met at a summer church camp that we both had gotten for several years, but never really met. After camp he e-mailed me to let me know that he wanted to keep in touch. At first, we had e-mail conversations back and forth every couple of days, but soon we would e-mail each other at least once a day and talk on IM for a couple hours at night. Eventually, he started calling me every couple of weeks and we would talk for an hour or two. Over the eight months prior to this night, we had talked almost everyday and we saw each other on three different occasions. Was this the right time? Should I really tell him? At this point, my Mom and my brother had been begging me to tell him for at least a month and my Dad had been referring to him as my boyfriend for months. I took her advice. He had to get off the computer at exactly midnight on February 14th, so right before he signed off, I told him. The conversation went something like this:

Meghan: There’s something I have to tell you.
Matt: Can it wait? I have to get off.
Meghan: No.
Matt: But seriously, my parents will KILL me if I don’t get off in one minute.
Meghan: I like you.
Matt: Oh…Well, I would love to talk to you about this, but I have to get off like right now! I guess I’ll talk to you tomorrow about it.

I was shaking all over! I had broken my promise. And I had told him that I liked him even though I did not know how he felt about me. What was I going to do? I wondered if it would make our friendship awkward. Why had I done that? I felt wonderful and terrible all at the same time. I wanted to know how he felt about me for months, so maybe I would finally get an answer, but I felt awful for what it could potentially do to our friendship if his feelings were not the same as my own. Well, we have been together for ten and a half months today, so you can assume that the feelings were mutual. He did not tell me how he felt, however, until two months later. I am feeling hopeful for this year’s Valentine’s Day, because I am in love with someone and I do not have to wait on their reply. ;)