Why I Started Saying “I Like You” Instead Of “I Love You”

Love has always been something difficult for me to express, and discuss. To me, love was something that almost didn’t even exist at first. Everyone that I thought loved me, in terms of relationships, always left or just ended communication. Love had became something that was just a word with little or no emotion behind it. For several years I decided it was easier to not even tell people I love them because that meant giving them a piece of me they could break. Since high school there have been very few people that I have allowed to become the exception to this rule.

When I started college and moved away, I realized that I was missing out on something I so desperately wanted to know about. Love. So, I started trying to figure out what this mysterious word meant that had somehow created a void in my heart. I searched, and searched, and then I met him. I think I knew the moment that he hit me with a rubber band that I would give him a piece of me I would never get back. I would give him a piece of my heart, a piece of who I was. Within 3 months I finally told him I loved him.

After saying I loved him, things were amazing. For awhile. Then, my Grand Mother passed away, and I lost all sense of self. I was in a very dark pit that I felt as though I couldn’t leave. Shortly after, I ruined everything, made us miserable, and soon, we called it quits.

So there I was, back to not telling people I love them, and lonely. I met a guy and talked to him for awhile. Even though he said he really cared about me and wanted a future, he was also telling that to another girl (he chose her).

It was at that point that I realized I needed to work on me, I needed to figure out what makes me happy, and how to achieve happiness on my own. So, I took some time to figure out myself, to realize that I could be happy single and on my own. Once I realized what made me happy, I realized what was missing…you. We started talking again, and eventually you took me back. Things were amazing, I was happy, and I was in love. Everything was great, up until I realized where things were going, we were headed for promises and commitments. And I panicked, and I let you go, because to me, that was easier than letting you have all of me, and all the power to destroy me emotionally.

After you, I chose to date a guy who at the time I thought, “Oh, maybe he’s the one.” Things were great, until my life started changing, graduation, moving home, and getting a job all were rapidly approaching my present. And while my life was changing for the better, his was going downhill. Apparently I was supposed to sit patiently waiting on him to decide to get life back together, and then the arguing started, then the deception, and the going through my phone, and hacking my social media started. So I took entirely too long, but I ended things.

Now, I am back to working on what makes me happy and I realized that I need to learn to like people first, and like all the things about them, and then if I find something that I do not like, I hope that I can learn to still like them and not like everything about them. By learning to like them you are able to learn to love them. I have started learning to like myself and realize what I want with my future. So, if it takes me 3 months, 6 months, a year, or three years, I will work each day to show You that I am trying, I am changing, I want You. Each day I am finding something new that I like about you, and something new that I like about me. So until we are there, I like you is better than saying I love you, because I am learning to like every part of you, and give you every part of me.