Short and ... uh ... well, short

[ysobel]

Dear Miss Manners: Is there a proper way to let someone know of my feelings for them? Does a proper courtship have to, at least initially, be hinted at and read between the lines?

Despite the appeal of love at first sight, Miss Manners would think that a declaration of love would be more flattering when you have gotten to know something about the person.

But this is not the Lovelorn Department, so she consulted her dear friend Stendhal, who declares in his book “On Love” that it is doubt that fuels love — and certainty that cools it.

Comments

[melannen]

The correct answer here, LW, is that every courtship is different: if you do not yet know the person well enough to know the appropriate path for this courtship, then you don't know them well enough yet to confess that you have "feelings" worthy of confession.

[full_metal_ox]

I know, right? Could a query get any more generic? (I’m hoping LW is very young, but we’ve seen accounts here of people capable of preserving terrifyingly unlived-in ignorance well into adulthood and old age.)

[melannen]

Yeah, unfortunately in my experience "I have 'feelings' for them, therefore they owe me something, I just have to use the magic words" is not age-linked.