"I like you"

"I like you." It's cute, it makes your heart flutter, and it makes you feel... well, liked. We're in third grade and everything's innocent. We smile at each other sheepishly as we admit our feelings and butterflies flutter around in our stomaches.

"I like you." It's a little less cute. Our faces have acne on it, we're awkward little pre-pubescent teenagers, and our voices crack as we confess our feelings as we shift from side to side, awkwardly. But it's okay - the feelings and the intentions are still adorably innocent.

"I like you." It's not that cute anymore. It's more serious. The answers here determine the next couple months, if not years of your life and frankly, high school is too short and too fleeting to know what we really feel. Love? Maybe some high schoolers are fortunate enough to be blessed with its true meaning, but for the majority of us out there: love will be foreign for a very long while. Now though, if the confessions aren't reciprocated, it has a much heavier meaning than it did in middle school and elementary school. It plays a part in how we define ourselves and how we perceive ourselves.

"I like you." It needs more clarification now. We're in college and everything around us is new and fleeting. We want to grasp at every opportunity that comes our way. We're always changing, always wondering, always holding by a thin shred of sanity. We're figuring out who we are and scrapping old versions of ourselves that we thought we knew but never really did. We're exploring the world and learning how to be alone for the first time in our lives. "I like you." That means a lot more than it used to. It carries a lot more weight. It reminds us of high school sweethearts and old heartbreaks. It brings a mental flood of memories, both good and bad.

"I like you." We know who we are now and we're looking for more than just fleeting emotion. We want to settle down and spend our lives with someone else, someone significant to us. "I like you" is nothing to laugh at anymore or anything to brush away. It's an investment and a decision you make. It's not as cute, it's not as fleeting, and it's not as tumultuous. And yet it still makes your heart flutter.

"I like you." It's crazy how one little phrase means so many different things over time.

#love