I am terrified of love. I’m 18 and I’ve kissed a guy once, it was my best friend on a dare. Whenever a guy gets close to me emotionally, I start throwing up walls. I act like a jerk until they go away, not because I don’t like them, but because I’m so scared. Nothing ever happened to make me this way, I didn’t have a traumatic experience, this is just the way that I am.

But now I’m in college, and I’ve met this guy, and I think he knows what I’m doing. He has gotten closer to me in 3 months than any of my previous friends did over spans of years. I’ve already tried to push him away, and he’s not having any of it. It’s not even like he’s breaking my walls, he’s walking right through them as if they don’t exist, completely unfazed. This is a really, REALLY big problem, because he has a girlfriend. They are very much in love, and I refuse to be a homewrecker, but this is killing me.

If I truly think about it, I don’t know if I’d want to date him, but what if that’s just me being scared again? What the heck am I supposed to do? I don’t want to continue like this, but I don’t want to let go of one of the most understanding and wonderful people in my life. Ugh. Emotions.