Having a crush on someone is always the best and the worst thing. You’re full of hope they’ll like you back or ask you out on a date, but a lot of the time we’re all just fearful they just think of us as a hookup or worse; as nothing more than just a friend. It’s always the worst when your crush doesn’t know you’re crushing on them and has the decency to dance, kiss, and even date other people in front of you. How could they do such an insensitive thing? It’s even more difficult when you see someone flirting with “your man,” but you can’t do anything about it because you’re not dating. I don’t understand why people’s brains think like this, but I don’t think it’s healthy.
As I grow older and filter through crushes, I can’t tell if I’d rather them know I like them and have them shoot me down or keep my feelings to myself. If I expressed my feelings and they shoot me down, then I would be able to move on and find someone else to like or date, and if they reciprocate my feelings then it would’ve been worth it. But if I keep my feelings to myself, I reduce the risk of embarrassment if they don’t like me. I might put my words to the test and tell my current crush that I like him and see what happens. Hopefully, my fear does not overcome me and I’ll be able to produce another article with, cross your fingers, a happy ending.
Anyway, besides me wanting to tell my crush I like him, there is a beauty to crushing on someone and it begins with stalking them on social media. Social media has taken over the dating and hookup game and has turned it into a thrill ride I want to get off. When I find a new crush, I instantly stalk his social media and show my friends his pics so they can see how attractive he is. Unfortunately, when your friends want to do extensive stalking and take your phone, you have to dramatically scream “Don’t like anything,” in fear that they’ll like a post from October of 2011, letting your crush know you’ve been stalking him. I’m not exactly sure why so many people, including myself, find it important to stalk someone on social media. Maybe, it’s to reaffirm your crush is still as cute as the last time you saw him. What always makes me laugh is when you or a friend find a cute boy and they try to show you him on social media, but he doesn’t photograph well, so we say, “He’s much cuter in person.”
When I was younger I remember being partnered with my crush, as if the teacher secretly knew I was crushing on him (thanks, Mrs. Foster). Yet, whenever I was partnered with my crush I was too nervous to flirt, so I would come off as stupid, quiet, or both. I wish I was given an advanced notice that I was going to be partnered with my crush because then I would’ve dressed cuter, put more makeup on, and acted less weird. Even now in college if I’m ever partnered with a crush, I become red-faced and my brain shuts off so I look stupid again. It’s like I’m reliving my old middle and high school self.
Unlike middle and high school though, crushing on someone in college feels much different. As we become young adults, we treat each other as such, which means asking each other out on dates and doing other romantic things. However, it can be a little daunting when you’re in limbo with someone who you can’t tell if they like you back. You talk occasionally or have inconsistent hookups, but who is to make the first move at progressing this relationship? This is when our childlike crushes turn into adult heartbreaks. It’s difficult to invest all of this time and energy into one person in hopes they will return the same feelings. You’ve gone as far as hooking up and it’s hard to look back after doing something like that. When this happens, I usually wait for the guy to make the move because I don’t want to embarrass myself by asking him out for fear he will say no. However, now that it’s 2018 and I’m tired of waiting around, I feel like we need to leave our high school behavior behind and “woman up” and ask our crush out. I’ll probably never follow through with this advice, but wouldn’t it be nice if I was confident enough to do such a thing?
As Valentine’s Day comes and goes, and another month of our crush not asking us out passes, I’m slowly realizing that crushing on someone is hard work. There is a lot of time and energy that is spent on liking someone and it’s almost always not worth it.
If I’m to give one piece of advice to someone who is crushing hard on someone, it would be to tell your crush how you feel because one day you’re going to open your eyes and realize you wasted months liking a guy when you could’ve been either dating them or out on the town looking for new men to cross your path.
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