Can't Wait to See You: 30 Messages That Ask for Nothing
30 can't wait to see you messages, from the confession after a first date to the miles counting the days. The want, said honestly, without asking a thing.
The message exists before you're even home: "I really wanted to see you tonight," typed on the bus ride back, deleted at the first red light, typed again at the second (the third can referee). You keep finding it too forward and not forward enough at the same time, as if one sentence could undo an evening that had just gone so well.
What holds you back isn't the sentence, it's the fear that it might weigh something: that a sincere impulse could start to look like an expectation, and your wanting like a debt dropped on someone you're only beginning to know. So settle the distinction once and for all: "I miss you" looks backward and asks for something, wanting to see someone looks forward and offers.
A can't wait to see you that asks for nothing puts no weight on anyone's shoulders: it leaves a door open, and an open door has never summoned anyone. The thirty messages below hold that line, from the next-morning confession to the miles counting down the days.
I'd been wanting to see you, the confession after the date
The text after a first date doesn't need to be brilliant, the evening already took care of that. The past tense does the work of modesty: "I'd been wanting to see you" says the want was there all along, laid down like a confession that expects nothing back.
I didn't say it earlier, so I'm writing it: I'd been wanting to see you. Since Tuesday, if I'm honest.
Two trains went by while we kept not saying goodbye. I really wanted to see you tonight, that part is confirmed.
Home safe, everything went fine, except the evening had one flaw: it ended.
My jacket still smells like the coffee place. I didn't take it off right away, I'll admit that much.
I told you I happened to get off early yesterday. Truth is, I moved two meetings. I'd been wanting to see you.
Third time we've ended on a see you soon without picking a day. I vote soon gets here fast.
I walked past the bench where we finished the night. It never did anything to me before you, that bench.
Goodnight. And for the record, I'd been wanting to see you long before I found myself a good excuse.
Can't wait to see you midweek, when Saturday is too far
A couple that parts on Sunday with a "see you Saturday" knows this midweek dip, when the next time is certain but far away (on Sunday you're brave, by Tuesday much less so). These texts don't ask for anything, they carry the week, the way thinking of you messages carry the ordinary days.
It's Tuesday and Saturday is dragging its feet. I can't wait to see you, consider yourself warned.
I cooked for two out of habit. So there's a full plate and an empty chair across from me, just saying.
Wednesday, officially closer to Saturday than to last Sunday. This is the kind of math you have me doing.
In meetings since two, and I drew a little Saturday in the margin of my notes. You're getting into my paperwork now.
The guy at the farmers market asked where you were. Even he thinks the week is running long.
Our show has been paused since the minute you left on Sunday. It's waiting for you, and I'm not doing much better.
I bought the wine for Saturday, it's sitting on the table. That makes two of us waiting for you now.
Can't wait to see you across the miles, counting the days
Across a distance, the want has a date, a ticket, and in between a row of days that refuse to move at the same speed (the Inuit have a word, iktsuarpok, for the wait that keeps checking the door). These texts say I can't wait to see you rather than I miss you: the impatience looks forward.
I checked what time it is for you before checking mine, again. My favorite time zone is yours.
I open the ticket in my phone most nights, just to make sure it's real. I can't wait to see you.
I've stopped counting in weeks, I count in sleeps now. Nine. Look what you've done to me.
I started a list of things to tell you in person. It already doesn't fit on one page.
The train ticket from your last visit is still in my wallet. It stays there until the next one.
The suitcase is already out from under the bed. Way too early, I know, but it puts me in a good mood.
A couple had their reunion right in front of me at arrivals this morning. I thought about ours, nineteen days out.
Tomorrow at this hour: the airport, your scarf, and zero miles left. I'm not asleep and I don't even want to be.
The tender bold ones, for saying the want out loud
There comes a point where the excuse gets bulkier than the confession. These seven don't dress up as coincidence: they say the want to its face, and that's the whole of their boldness.
No detours tonight: I want to see you. Nothing you need to answer, it was just too true to keep to myself.
The place was packed tonight, and I spent the whole evening thinking about someone who wasn't there. Guess.
Thursday is supposed to be sunny. If you're free, I know a patio that faces the sunset. If not, the want can wait.
My cooking is average, but I have a table, two chairs, and I want you in the one across from me, some evening.
I could wait for this to pass. I don't want it to pass. I want to see you.
Right now I would drop everything for one hour of coffee with you. It's unreasonable and I stand by it.
I've written this message three different ways now. Every version said the same thing: I can't wait to see you.
What can't wait to see you really says, and what to text back
If you're the one who received it, read it for what it is: you kept existing in someone's evening after the evening ended. The sentence confesses everything and summons nothing, you stay free to answer at whatever speed suits you. Three replies that beat a thumbs-up:
- Send the confession back if you share it: me too, and I didn't dare write it first.
- Give your version of the evening: your impression of the waiter followed me the whole way home.
- And if you don't share it, receive it without promising anything: thank you for telling me like that. An honest thank-you beats a door held half-open out of politeness.
And if you're the one still hesitating to send it, there's the old three-day rule, the one that's supposed to keep you from looking too eager: it protects people who play, not people who love. A can't wait to see you text has no regulation hour: it goes out the moment the want shows up.
One of these thirty will go out tonight, and it will be the right one, because it will be true at the moment it's sent. But when the want has a date, it changes nature: it becomes a wait you can count, the kind other languages have words for the wait of love to name, and what can be counted can be given. Thirty days before you see each other again, thirty words written ahead of time, one for each morning (the last one gets said in person).
Days to count before you see them again?
Tuck a word behind each day of the wait, and let them open a new surprise every morning until the reunion.
Create my countdown