I Think I Really Like You, And That Makes Me Nervous
I was single for 69 days before we started talking. To be fair, though, we were already friends, so I guess it would be more accurate to say that I was single for 69 days before we started talking about you and me.
Ours was a classic story: boy meets girl, boy hits on girl, girl shoots boy down because she has a boyfriend, girl and boy spend most of their college careers in an on-and-off friendship tinged with sexual tension and awkward interactions until girl gets dumped, at which point boy and girl enter into an undefined hook up-relationship-friendship hybrid.
I’m still not sure how it happened—one minute you were talking about San Francisco and SkyMall, and before I knew it I was hanging on to every word you said about us. Which is weird, because I don’t even remember ever agreeing there was an us—not that I’m opposed to us.
So that’s 69 days between the last time I sent a text to him that said “hi :)” and the first time I sent you one. And I know it sounds silly, but that makes me nervous. I’m nervous I don’t know how to be “me” without a “you,” whoever that “you” is. I’m nervous that I’m just trying to replace him with you, because you’re so similar in so many ways.
I’m nervous I only feel so strongly about you because I’m used to love swallowing me whole, and quite frankly, I’m nervous that you make me so nervous. What if I went too far? You never said what we were, or if we were anything at all, but the second you said, “I’m attracted to you,” a switch flipped and I regressed. I turned into the kind of person who bases her outfit on whether or not she’s likely to bump into a guy, and I hate those people. You hate those people.
And yet, I can’t help myself. I like the fact that you’re as clueless about what I do as I am about what you do. I like that we style our hair the same way, parted just far enough to the left that it falls in a kind of swoop over the right side of our foreheads. I like the freckles on your face that are invisible from far away, but up close seem to blend together in a mass of tan under your eyes.
I like the way you’re as much of a romantic as I am, because that’s what we both need right now: we’re jaded and broken, and we need to know that someone is holding out for us, if only just a little bit. That’s why I’m nervous.
I’m nervous because you like me, and I like you, and I don’t know how to proceed. I’m nervous because I know all your secrets and you know mine, and I have no idea how to deal with the fact that I’m emotionally, mentally, and physically attracted to you without getting in over my head.