Stop Bullshitting Yourself And Tell Her How You Feel

By

Uncertainty marks his face. I don’t know, he tells me. I don’t know what I want.

I sigh. Uncertainty also marks my face, uncertainty as to why I am always the one people like him seek answers from. I feel like an imposter. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t have the certainty to rectify life’s biggest questions. I only have questions, but I don’t tell him this. I may feel like an imposter, but for some unexplained reason, he and the others seeks solace in my company, and I am not in the business of robbing people of their hope, even if that hope feels like a façade.

Uncertainty marks his face. I don’t know, he tells me. I don’t know what I want.

I sigh. How many times have I heard this? How many times must I be subjected to this lie? How many times do we pretend that our desires are an unsolved mystery? How many times do we lie to ourselves as to what our heart truly wants? How many times must I knock sense into his vagueness? That’s why he’s here, across from me with a hollow gaze, looking for me to fill his vacancy with truths he and I both already know he possesses.

Don’t bullshit me, I reply.

It’s not my most eloquent response, but the truth never is. The truth is quite often unpleasant. The truth is never comforting. The truth is the unspoken fears we are too scared to face, and his fears are written all over his body. His hands are trembling. He can’t keep his fingers still. He keeps moving, unsure of how he wants to position himself. His body language is that predictable. He is a living embodiment of his trademark indecisiveness.

Don’t bullshit me, I repeat before he can interrupt. We both know you know what you want.

He shakes his head. I just, I can’t, I don’t know…

He’s all unfinished remarks with an intentional hesitation as he looks for me to finish them. I don’t at first. I let his hesitation linger. I let the silence of what he is afraid to admit consume him. I let his own self-inflicted agony overwhelm him because I know he perpetuated the same hurt onto the subjects of our discussion.

The uncertainty that plagues him now is the very one the others in this narrative have been experiencing since the beginning of his charade. He’s known since the very start what he wanted, but it frightened him, so he ran to alternatives. He played the dance of suppressing his emotions and instead filled his void and his ego with secondary characters that he never cared for. It wasn’t fair to them. It wasn’t fair to her. It never is fair to anyone in these predicaments. It’s the miserable undefined, the dreaded casual, the almost relationship charade that defines our uncommitted generation.

I take a deep breath and roll up my sleeves. I sit up straighter and look at him with piercing conviction, as I am about to take his unfinished remarks and serve him some undeniable certainty.

Don’t bullshit me. We both know what you want. We both know you want her. She is the protagonist, she always has been. What you are feeling is just fear, fear of rejection, and fear of unreciprocated feelings. Well, welcome to the club. Make yourself at home. You are in the company of those that have learned firsthand that those fears of loss can manifest. It sucks. There’s no other way for me to articulate it, but you know what hurts more than rejection? Uncertainty. What plagues you now is far worse than what would happen if she says no. The not knowing is the worst. Again, take it from those that have learned firsthand. Rejection may break your heart, but the not knowing, the unclear and the hypothetical what ifs will kill your soul.

 So do yourself a favor and just tell her, for fuck’s sake. Blast music outside of her window, blast one of those cliché love songs and tell her. Take her to a public setting and shout it out to the world. Rectify all this wasted time and overcompensate. Make an obnoxious scene out of it. Declare your heart’s true sentiments and tell her, tell her that you love her. Go after her and no one else. Don’t walk. Just run, run to her. Fly if you must. Go to her using whatever means are required and tell her that you love her. Stop being paralyzed. Stop chasing alternatives. Stop this cycle of uncertainty and charades. Tell her that you love her. Not over text or phone – no, you must tell her in person. Make sure she hears it over and over. Tell her what every one of us in this transient generation is secretly searching for. Tell her something real for once. Give her the labels, give her the defined, give her the exclusivity and ease her mind. Tell her that she doesn’t need to search anymore. Tell her that you want her, that you choose her and that you love her. And love her in the only way that matters. Love her with honest raw and unguarded emotion.

I take a deep breath and lean back into my seat. I watch my words transform him. His hollow gaze is no more. Instead, I can see my clear reflection in his brown eyes as certitude colors his face.

You always know what to say, he tells me as he arises to take the necessary next step.

I answer him with a smile and gesture him to go and he does. And as I watch him run, I reflect on his words. Maybe I don’t have the answers. Maybe I’m just a girl with a penchant for words that get strung along into some indication of hope. Maybe that’s the only way you can rectify the uncertainty – with words of truth and action.