I like you; do you like me?

"Hey, I like you, do you like me?"

Don't you wish that it were socially acceptable to say this? It would make social interactions that much easier if you could just go up to some nice person who you had a crush on and say this to them? I suppose that it is possible, but it takes guts, and is rather blunt. Even if I did like someone who said this to me, I might be taken aback by it and startled for a moment. Still, aren't there times you are dying to say, "I like you, do you like me?"

I should have seen the signs, I should have picked up on the subtle details, but I didn't. Out of the blue one day in middle of a study session with one of my really good friends, she turns to me and says this:

I like you, do you like me?

At first, I was only a tad taken aback, it took that long for it to sink in. And the complications, the tripping over my words in effort to explain things, to apologize if she thought I'd been leading her on, to straighten out the way the relationship existed for me.

I was fifteen, trying to work out if we were friends only because she'd had the hots for me, trying to figure out whether I could deal with that, trying to let her down without losing her.

We had a rough spot or two, then, me being undeniably straight and thoroughly surprised by her question, her alternating between complete letdown and subtle come-ons. But it worked out in the end