Is there a right time to say I love you?

It happens most when he looks at me right after we’ve kissed. It happens on our long walks and deep talks; it happens when I hear him talk so passionately on something he feels so strongly about. It happens when he kisses my forehead and when he makes me laugh so much that I beg him to stop. It happens when I see him smile. The words ‘‘I love you’’ scream so loudly in my head that I’m sure he can hear my thoughts as I attempt to stop them from escaping my mouth. I know how I feel about this person – I have no doubts – but I still haven’t taken myself to the pinnacle of vulnerability by allowing him to hear this truth out loud. Do you remember being at school, the days when all this relationship stuff was simplified? You would write your declaration to your new found crush on a piece of paper torn from your notebook and wait for your friend in the middle to pass it back. You knew what the deal was within the hour. I wish we could still get our friends to pass notes.

Now it’s three day rules and acting aloof. Some of us fear the potential danger that comes with saying those words. As beautiful as it is, it can also act as a heavy realisation that this person has the power to break you. Three words so small mean something so big, and once they have left your mouth you can’t take them back. Telling someone you love them is the most complex yet simplistic statement of all. It means a lifetime of things, but takes a matter of moments to say. Saying I love you conjures up every type of emotion. Some people, in this context of love, will only tell one human being that they love them and that human being is the person they spend their life with. Others will tell a few more – some they believed at the time they did and others they will realise it was probably lust covered in the idea of love. We often know when we have fallen for another person because of how we feel inside, how our mind and body reacts – it just happens. In one single moment a light comes on, that feeling inside you that becomes uncontrollable, consumes your mind. Saying it, on the other hand, can sometimes take a little longer.

I’ve known, first-hand and through close friends, for the first ”I love you’s” to happen in a number of different ways: through a written letter, in the heat of a blazing argument, or in the most relaxed setting on the sofa, both hung-over and unwashed watching back-to-back re-runs of trashy TV. Wherever it is and however it’s said many of us will remember that feeling of either telling someone you love them for the first time, or being told that you are loved. The truth is, there is never a right time to say I love you. There is only your time to say I love you. Love doesn’t come with a handbook or guidelines. There are no seminars or classes, no systems or manuals to follow because it is not something that can be tamed or boxed. Love is an expression of a million different feelings and something so incredible that belongs to every human being, but at the same time only you. So, whether you scream it from the top of the escalators in Oxford Circus, or you whisper it on a Sunday morning, your right time will be just right for you.

By Tasha Artwell