Three months. Three small words. Three, two, one, PANIC!

How can three small words bring about so much panic?!I met my boyfriend three months ago, but we only became official a little over a month ago. It’s been a whirlwind romance, to say the least. In this short amount of time, we’ve met each other’s kids, I’ve met his ex-wife, he’s met my mom, and we both went from “I don’t want a relationship right now” to “Holy shit, dude. I wanna be with you!”In the mere three months we’ve known each other, we’ve had deeply personal conversations about our respective pasts, we’ve shared laugh after laugh after laugh, and he’s even rescued me after I suffered the worst panic attack I’ve ever had. Yesterday, we took a huge step in really getting to know each other. When I got home from our date yesterday afternoon, it hit me that I was pretty sure I’d fallen in love with him.Of course, I can’t tell him that.It’s nerve wracking when you want to tell someone you love them, but you can’t because you feel like it’s too soon to be saying such things or because you couldn’t bear the thought of them not saying it back. So, I’ve opted to just not say it. I want to be able to tell him in words that I feel some kind of way about him without saying something dumb like, “Gee whiz, I’m sure fond of you!” What’s also nerve wracking is the possibility that he may be thinking the exact same thing and a lot of anxiety could be eased by both of us just saying in unison, “Bam. I love you. Done.”But then I said to myself, “Why do I feel it’s too soon? Why do emotions have to be on some kind of microwave timer? Why hold it back if it’s true?” Society makes no secret of what a faux pas it is to drop an “I love you” too soon. Rom-coms and TV shows would have you believe it’s relationship suicide and can lead to awkward situations and all kinds of what I call Jennifer Aniston-style shenanigans, or “shenanistons”.So, I guess my question is this: barring what society or what anyone you know says, what do YOU consider to be an appropriate time to drop those words? What stars have to be aligned for you to say such a thing to someone? What’s the soonest you’ve said it? The longest you've waited?