Crushes. You either love them, or you hate them. The thrill of seeing your crush in the hallways, trying to sit next to them during assemblies, wondering if maybe, just maybe, when they looked at you it was because they liked you back. Crushes can be exciting, yet daunting.
There are different ways to deal with having a crush, and if you’re like me, you can decide to never, ever tell them how you feel. The thought of rejection was too scary and you just can’t risk confessing your feelings to them.
It’s OK. I was, and still am, the same way. None of my previous crushes were aware of how I felt, until very recently.
One random day, I got the idea that I should tell my previous crushes that I used to like them. I’m not sure why (maybe I was possessed by the essence of Lara Jean from “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”), but I wanted to tell them, in hopes of finally being able to let go of these feelings I’ve held for so long.
So, I did.
In true Gen Z fashion, I made a private Snapchat story, added all of the guys I used to like (and a few friends that were aware of the idea and wanted to witness the madness unfold), titled it “to all the boys…” and started filming.
All of the guys on this story were boys that I went to middle school or high school with, so I hadn’t talked to them in a long time, making this slightly complicated, but I didn’t let that stop me. In the videos I filmed, I told them that I used to have a crush on them, that I was over it now, but still had weird unresolved feelings because they never found out. I apologized for potentially making them feel uncomfortable, informed them that they could laugh at me, call me weird or just flat out ignore me and I would be fine either way and finally, thanked them for being amazing guys in general. It was awkward and messy and very funny when I look back on it.
I got a few responses from the guys, mostly them saying that they weren’t aware that I had liked them, that the story was interesting but ultimately funny, and that they were still cool with me.
I’m not sure if I was looking for them to reject me, call me names or confess that they also liked me, but either way, the response was better than I could’ve imagined.
So, you may be wondering, why did I do this then? If I wasn’t really expecting a reaction, then what was the point? Well, I realized that it was more than just talking to these boys.
Like I said before, I had held onto these feelings for so long, that I felt like I needed to finally confess them to fully get over my crushes on these guys. Even though I hadn’t thought about these guys in that way for a while, the feelings were still there, somewhere. And that was such a weird concept to me—to know that, even if I never see these guys again, I could still have feelings for them. So, to let go and move on, I had to tell them.
Another thing that I realized through this was that, when I want to, I can be very bold and confident. My high school self would never have had the guts to do this, even if it was over social media and not face to face. I just didn’t have that confidence, but this made me realize that I do. I put myself out there, and the worst thing that happened was getting no response from some of the guys. But, that didn’t hurt like I would’ve expected it to. I was able to brush it off and keep going.
All of my friends said I was bold for doing this, and that was one of the first times I had ever been called that. It was nice to know that I could be this confident person and not care what others thought of me. Are there easier, less weird ways to discover this? Probably, but I’m not sure if they would have been as groundbreaking, or funny, for me.
So, take this as your sign to do something that your previous self would have thought impossible. You’ll be surprised at what you can discover about yourself.