#which greatly reduces risk of rejection and secondly in both those instances the people he's saying it to are already committed so

[superhell]

ok so it’s fully established that house has an incredibly hard time verbalizing his emotions (specifically the positive ones) due to a fear of rejection and a deep deep aversion to displaying vulnerability

which makes the incredibly few times he’s admitted to someone that he cares about them, well, incredible. to list every single time that i can remember off the top of my head here: 

instance one: he tells stacy he loves her directly before he goes into a coma.  the statement itself is undeniably romantic in nature. 

instance two: he tells cuddy he loves her after they hook up and she gives him a whole long speech on how she doesn’t want him to change. this is the culmination of years of dancing around each other. the statement is undeniably romantic in nature. 

instance three: he tells wilson their friendship means more to house than any patient

instance four: he tells wilson he likes him

instance five: i mean i can keep going. there’s wilsons transplant surgery there’s everything with amber theres just so much. anyway

all of which leads me to the conclusion that of the three people house has ever sincerely expressed affection for two of those are people he’s canonically in love with which means that the third one must also be someone he’s [gunshots]