Being scared of falling in love is exactly like being scared of chasing your dreams — you care about it and want it so much that you're afraid to take the first step, but you won't know what will happen until you try.

For the longest time, I have always dreamt of the idea of love and the thousands of emotions and feelings that are attached that SO many people have described forever. But that's all it was for me- just fantasies playing out repeatedly and taking on new forms time after time within my own head.

The one thing that I am always hesitant to share with others is my love life. Even to the people who are closest to me, I always thought twice about talking about it because it just seemed pathetic. It's something that I always felt insecure about because it never really existed. I had my hardcore crushes throughout school, of course, but I never seriously pursued any of them myself while I still liked them. I didn't have my first kiss until I was 17 years old and a senior, and up until this summer, in fact, I never had a boyfriend. I never liked to admit it, but I was embarrassed by all of this.

Throughout all of this, I just labeled myself as a "hopeless romantic." Since my childhood was based off all the Disney Princess movies, how could I not have this big and perfect idea of love as the foundation of my perspective on it? I would read cheesy romance novels and watch all the romcoms I could growing up, creating these super high expectations for myself for the future romance(s) I'd eventually pursue.

And when I would try to figure out why I never actually invested in romantic ventures, these expectations seemed to be the key answer. If I had these huge expectations of a love that would excite, liven, anger, destroy and save me- make me feel every emotion in the world- all at once, then I had something else coming for me. I wanted that perfect kind of love that I didn't even know if it just existed in the fictional tales or the real ones, too.

This idea of "perfect" wasn't the only thing keeping me from pursuing love, though. It was the fear of messing up, veering off course, investing in someone that may not have been a good choice in the long run. In this thing called life, I think I've realized that I'm somewhat of a perfectionist, and if I experienced heartbreak it would somehow take me away from my aspirations or distract me. In addition to these fears, I'm an emotional person by nature (my astrology sign is Cancer, after all), so if I were to experience legitimate heartbreak, I never knew if I could recover from it.

So I firmly believe that from a young age I held myself back from investing in boys for fear of experiencing the unknown territories of being in love. I dreamt about being with all my crushes, the celebs I adored, and just the perfect guy so many times that I also believed that I was afraid my real life love wouldn't match- or live up to- my fake ones.

And this is what makes the Netflix original movie — "To All The Boys I've Loved Before" — unbelievably relatable for me. The main character, Lara Jean, has fantasized about love and has crushed so hard on several guys throughout her young life that she had written private letters for each of them that described her exact thoughts about each one of them. When all of these letters were mysteriously mailed out to each addressee and Lara Jean has to "fake date" one of them in order to protect her secret past crush on her sister's ex-boyfriend, it is revealed that she wasn't so keen on investing in this magical feeling quite yet.

The one scene that really tugged at my heartstrings was when Lara Jean and Peter Kavinsky (her fake boyfriend) are discussing the truth behind why she never had a real boyfriend before. She explains to him how love is great to read and think and write about, but when it becomes real, it's scary as hell. Peter responds with a question asking why she's not scared to be with him, and she only responds with how the relationship is all just pretend. Lara Jean isn't afraid of this fake love because she knows it exists in her realm of imaginative love, where her heart and expectations are safe.

To say I couldn't relate more to a fictional character is an understatement. Even when I started to research the book of the same name this movie was based on, I found quotes that seemed as though they were pulled from my own mind. Lara Jean's story and mine don't perfectly line up, of course; she's also scared of love because her mom died when she was young where I cannot nearly relate along with the fact that she's a junior in high school while I'm a sophomore in college. But I think our minds work the same in regards to our idea of love: that it's a scary thing but it seems so magical from afar. Love comes with a risk factor for each of its keepers, but for the ones who are scared out of their mind about it, the risk can seem larger than life.

And that's exactly what happened with me. My whole motto freshman year was to just see where life took me and I would find the start of my love life there. Come summertime I ventured into one of the most unexpected yet incredible crushes I ever had in my life, and this one turned out to be my best guy friend (yay me, right?). I was beyond scared to let someone else in, let alone feel like I'm risking a friendship that was so important to me.

My whole circumstance was depending on whether I was just infatuated with the idea of being with someone, for the convenience factor of it being my best guy friend, or because I really was falling for him. That month of trying to reflect on my emotions made me really see what I gave up and that I was, indeed, falling for him and maybe for even longer than I thought in the first place. This all may sound cheesy, but it's all true.

I was so scared, in fact, that I made myself step away from this idea of crushing on him altogether. It was the longest and most confusing month I ever had to endure, and it was all because I feared love- this great thing that everybody talks about and the one thing I believed I felt before I restrained myself from it. One day I realized what I was actually doing to myself, and as my one best friend put it, I decided to risk it for the biscuit.

This is exactly what Lara Jean had a problem with doing in the first place, too; she had written all of these letters and even put the address of each of its admirers on the envelope. As her sister Margot points out, she probably addressed each of the letters because a part of her wanted to do something about each of her crushes- but she never had the guts to do anything about it. She always dreamt of something happening but was always scared of the risk that it would have to take to get that result. Since they did get mailed out, however, some things did happen- crazily, even- but it turned out to be better than her wildest dreams, and she came out alive.

And here I am today, still standing, with an incredible boyfriend and one helluva first love story. It was filled with confusion and being terrified, but it was so worth it if it meant I would be where I am now. Not to say that I'm still scared, of course, but it's more of a good kind than bad because I know now that it was soworth it.

This is why I wanted to share my story: I wanted to let people know that being scared of love is kind of a normal thing. So for those of you who are reading this and relating so hard, just know that there is another girl out there that didn't have her first boyfriend for a long time because of that, and I'm sure there are plenty of others just like us too.

For the person who still feels like Lara Jean and I, just know that it's okay to be scared of love because one day — unexpectedly — you're going to realize you're ready for it because that right person will come around to prove it. And it will be great.