I'm a native English speaker and I think it's at least partly a translation issue; if you translate "好きです" as "I like you" then it is completely normal to confe

I'm a native English speaker and I think it's at least partly a translation issue; if you translate "好きです" as "I like you" then it is completely normal to confess that way. Translating it as "I love you" makes it a lot more weighty and creepy. I don't really speak Japanese, but it seems like 好き is somewhere between "like" and "love."