Dear Melanie,

I am best friends with this guy who is seriously the opposite of “my type,” but I am beginning to have feelings for him and I don’t know what to do. If I act on my feelings I could completely ruin our friendship. Do you have any advice?

Dear Anonymous,

You have probably heard this piece of advice a million times, and it usually seems too ambiguous to follow, but sometimes the only right thing to do is to follow your heart.

It is easy to listen to your mind and to let fear take over your emotions, but sometimes that fear is just crippling and can hold you back from some amazing opportunities, including love.

Who am I to say that this could definitely lead to something amazing and you’ll be happy forever, right? But I can tell you that if you don’t act on your feelings, you will always wonder what would have happened if you did.

I laughed a little when I read “the opposite of ‘my type,’” because that seems to always be the case. Most of the time we have an image in our minds of the person we hope to end up with. We have qualities we search for and certain attributes that we believe will mesh “perfectly” with ours, but usually we end up with the exact opposite and that turns out being the best thing for us. The person who is the opposite of what we thought we needed tends to be the opposite of us and so they balance us very well.

I understand that it can be very scary thinking about your current relationship with this guy and the possibility of it changing, but humans are programmed to fear change and sometimes it isn’t even bad. There is a possibility that he may not feel the same way, but if your friendship is that strong than I believe it will make it through this hiccup, and at least he’ll know your true feelings.

If he does feel the same way however, which is entirely more possible considering you are best friends and already share a common bond that is probably very strong, then you could end up making the best decision of your life by telling him you’re feelings have grown.

My best advice is to take a chance. Take that leap of faith and see where you land. The worst thing that can happen is you are back where you started, and the best is that you’re somewhere completely different and ten times happier, so where’s the real risk?