Why Admitting Your Feelings Is The Strongest Thing You Can Possibly Do
In the several months off that I decided to take from dating, the main lesson I picked up is that feelings are bad. My Instagram feed is bombarded by posts that bashes on people who have feelings and don’t get me wrong. I, too, find those posts hilarious! As someone who’s been in the dating scene for several years, I get why developing feelings are often used as the butt of many #singlelife dating jokes.
In the zig-zagged world of today’s dating scene, we’ve been told on numerous occasions that feelings lead to disappointment. This is an era where ghosting, playing dumb, disappearing then reappearing has become just the norm. This is the age when so-called “real” dating comes to die. Every millennial will almost certainly have one story of ghosting or two and hey, it hurts! Nobody ever likes rejection especially when you have anxiety and are self-conscious.
This predicament has brought about the idea that we shouldn’t have feelings so we can avoid disappointment. When we have emotions in our heart for a certain someone, we become weak and we can feel our bodies tingling in a way that makes us feel helpless, but secure; happy, but anxious; elated, but realistic. Developing feelings require us to be vulnerable and today there is a suggestion that vulnerability is the same as being weak.
But does vulnerability make us weak or make us human?
We should be able to have the freedom to tell that special someone that we like them because doing so takes courage. That uncertain feeling at the pit of our stomach that comes when we’re unsure on whether we should say what we want to say or not, is not a sign of weakness; it’s a symbol of bravery. Those who are willing to admit their feelings are those who are strong because they know that love doesn’t guarantee a happy beginning or ending, but they’ll take their chances.
Having feelings for someone doesn’t make you weak, but it does make you bold. You found someone worth fighting for and you’re willing to put in the extra work to win them over respectfully. You inquire about their preferences to find out what they like and don’t like then you surprise them because you want to make them happy. Feeling something for someone doesn’t make you a loser or a weakling at all, but it does show how far you’re willing to go to show her/him that they’re worth having in your life.
We don’t look down on people who are in love or else we wouldn’t be giving high praises to adorable old couples or even wishing inside our hearts that we could one day take a breathtaking couples picture. We don’t take a shit on the saying that the gift of life is to love and be loved; if anything, we shamelessly use these words as the wallpaper on our phones.
Having feelings doesn’t make us weak. Feeling the butterflies in our stomach when we see that one person who sweeps us away come towards us is not a sign of weakness. Because in honesty, coming to terms with that love bug takes actual guts because we all know how nerve-wrecking courtships and relationships can be. It’s up to us whether we want to muster the courage to express how we feel to that special someone or bite our tongue and walk away. The decision is ours to make, but what is for certain is that nobody has the right to label us weak in what we choose for our hearts. 
