There’s no moment quite so awkward when a new love interest in your life has made their declaration but something inside you just won’t let you say it back yet.

What do you say, though? Is there any way to save the relationship if you want to?

These people have a few ideas (but you might want to take some of them with a grain of salt).

I’d watch it.

I feel like this could be a modern-day Seinfeld episode. Most likely with Jerry or George, but I could see Elaine doing it as well.

Girl: “I love you”

Jerry: “I love… YouTube”

Girl: “What did you just say?”

Jerry: “I said I love YouTube”

Girl: “Did you just say, ‘I love YOU TUBBBEE?'”

Jerry: “I said Iloveyuoutube”

Girl: “YOU’RE SAYING YOU TUBE?? GET OUT!!!”

A presidential reply.

When Monica Lewinsky told president Bill Clinton she loved him, he replied “That means a lot to me.”

Acknowledges the sentiment, establishes appreciation, and leaves the door open to future development.

…. Obviously there’s badness coming from a married man whose wife is not aligned with the relationship, but that’s a separate issue.

Don’t ignore it.

I will say this, Do Not Ignore Their Saying It. You do not have to say it back but always acknowledge it. It can be as simple as kissing them, saying thank you,

I love hearing that, I care about you too, etc. but straight up ignoring it is extremely harmful

Not there yet.

I said I love you before my partner was ready to say it back.

He said, “I appreciate you being honest and telling me how you feel. I’m not there yet, but I think I will be someday.”

We now live together and I think he says it more than I do lol.

Pretty neutral.

You are very important to me too.

Whale sounds.

I said it too soon.

She responded with something resembling whale sounds.

I drove home that night thinking I would never see her again.

6 years later, sometimes when one of us says “I love you,” the other one will make whale sounds back.

Distracting, anyway.

Touch their nose and say “Boop”.

Appreciate ya.

We appreciate your loyalty. Here’s a $25 Starbucks gift card.

Compliments for days.

Thank you for having the courage to say that to me and I am so flattered. Right now, I don’t feel ready to say it back.

I like you very much but I’m just not ready to say I love you.

Thank you.

Your sentiment has been noted. I’ll take it under consideration.

Thank you.

Too soon!

TOO SOON! YOU HAVE AWAKENED ME TOO SOON, EXECUTUS!

That’ll fix it.

“Cool…” and then finger guns

It depends…

If it comes at an awkward or inappropriate time, like a first date, and you’re not going to say it back, it probably doesn’t matter what you say next…and there’s too much situational variability to provide a singular “this is the best response” answer to the question.

If it comes at an appropriate time, but you’re just hung up on it, you have about half a second to decide if this person means enough to you to risk fucking things up by not saying it back or getting over your hang ups and reciprocating.

A classic for a reason.

If the top answer is not “I know” then I don’t know about Reddit anymore.

Everyone has their own story.

My ex and I had a complicated relationship in the beginning.

We worked in a shop together. I’d been there for 3 years and he started as a newbie around Easter. Easter came and went, and one day as he was leaving he’d found some mini eggs behind some confectionary on the shelves. He was clocking out and I served him at the tills, and he presented the bag of mini eggs. They scanned through at full price, and I said “absolutely not.” It wasn’t Easter! So I manually marked them down to something stupid like 20p. He blurted out “I love you.” And I just sort of stared at him. We were only colleagues at the time, but we’d flirted a bit.

He didn’t realise what he’d said.

We continued to get closer, and soon enough he was saying “I love you” regularly. We weren’t officially together, but we’d been sleeping together and he wanted a relationship. I wasn’t ready to say it back, so instead of saying “I love you too” or sometimes if he just didn’t want to put the pressure on me to say it back, we’d say “mini eggs” since when I served him the mini eggs was the first time he said it.

When we had our first fight, which was only a few weeks into sleeping together, still no official relationship, we didn’t speak for 10 days. He no longer worked at my shop at this time, and one night I finished a late shift at 11pm, got home to find an Amazon parcel for me. I was so confused… I panicked, wondering if someone had bought something on my account and opened it… only to find a MASSIVE jar of mini eggs inside. His way of saying sorry and wanting to get back in contact.

So yeah, that’s my silly story of the day.

My ex-boyfriend and I used to say Mini Eggs instead of “I love you” at the start… and close to the end too, when I think he was beginning to fall out of love with me.

A few of these might actually work.

I mean, you never know until you try – but either way, don’t ever say it until you’re ready.