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To care or not to care: My high school crush


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During my teenage years, my best female friend was also my "secret" crush. This crush lasted from 5th grade middle school up to final year of high school, more or less 7 years. That final year, I decided I had had enough; I needed to forget about her once and for all. So, I asked her to stay after school one day and told her everything, how I have liked her for literally seven years. Since she had a boyfriend at the time, I told her explicitly that my only intention was to get the feelings out of my chest so that I could move on. After that, I went home smiling, feeling that I had finally gotten some closure.

 

Wrong.

 

During recess, I used to hang out in the library, working on homework and stuff (these were my 4.0 GPA years). One week after I spilled my heart out, she came to the library, walked over to me and sat down in the chair next to me, something she had never ever done. We proceeded to chat as if nothing had happened. I didn't think much of it at that point. But then, exactly one week after that, the same thing happened. And then the week after that. And the one after that. Always same day, same time, same table.

 

At this point, I thought it was reasonable to assume that something weird was going on. So, just as a test, when the day of her weekly visit came, I didn't go to the library. That same afternoon, while I was waiting outside a classroom for a class to start, she and a friend approached a group of people near me and they started talking. I was reading a book, minding my own business. Then, I notice that she quietly slips from the group, approaches the bench where I'm sitting and sits herself next to me. I pretend like I didn't notice. She then said rather timidly, without looking at me "Hey...you didn't show up at the library today".

 

Call me crazy, but for me this confirmed that her visits had not been casual friendly meetings, but rather an escalating emotional affair. I had been suspecting it for a while, but I hadn't been sure if the tension during our meetings was only in my head; for me, this confirmed that it wasn't (but again, I might just be that much of a hopeful idiot).

 

But, alas, I'm one of those "good guys" (I hate myself for that sometimes), and since I knew she had a boyfriend, there was only one thing I could do: "Yeah, I was busy, sorry. Btw, how is your boyfriend?"

 

Aaaand that was that. She never visited again after that, which again I thought kind of confirmed the whole thing.

 

Two years went by, not a single word exchanged between us. One day, I get a message from her on FB: "Hey, how are you doing? I was wondering about what you were up to" or something like that. At that time, I had a girlfriend and she was single. I was doing amazing, so I felt that it was a perfect chance to get even more closure. So we ended up going out. We didn't really touch any sensitive topic, probably because I no longer felt I was interested in her, and all the time I was thinking "I am so over her". At the end of the day, we said our goodbyes, and that was that.

 

Four years later, now 2017, I message her. Why? Honestly, I don't entirely know myself. Anyway, we ended up going out this last Sunday.

 

Oh dear.

 

That evening was crazy. She had a problem with her parents, which made her cry and get very emotional (I think I've only seen her cry once when we were like 12). We ended up sitting in the car for over an hour, holding hands at different instances for long intervals, at one point hugging, both which we had never ever done before. I held a finger to her cheek and gently wiped off a tear. Our fingers interlocked. I told her how great she is and made her feel better about herself, even making her laugh. We then spent the rest of the evening walking next to the ocean, talking about ourselves and everything we've learned about love and relationships in these last few years. Finally, after about 6 hours hanging out together, I dropped her home, not before holding hands one final time to give her strength to face her parents. She thanked me for paying for the evening and for my advice. Honestly, I felt that we had shared something really special that day.

 

And then, the next day...

 

Silence.

 

NOTHING. Not even hello, not even "my parents are driving me crazy", or "how are you?"...nothing. Thursday arrived, and still nothing. So a couple of hours ago I message her.

 

Me: "So did you parents take your cell phone away or something?"

Her: "I've been busy working. I've been avoiding my parents as much as possible"

 

The busy line. Really?

 

I don't know if I'm crazy, but I think that this is a very clear sign that the evening wasn't special to her, at least not nearly as much as I felt it to be.

 

And so, we arrive at the big question.

 

Should I continue to care about her? Do I have a chance? Is there something here worth pursuing?

 

Or

 

Should I not care? Just send her one final message, and then NC ever again? Something along the lines of "I can't help it, you will always be special to me, but I know that I will never be special to you, and I can't do this anymore"

 

Any help is appreciated it. Thank you in advance.

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normal person

Should I not care? Just send her one final message, and then NC ever again? Something along the lines of "I can't help it, you will always be special to me, but I know that I will never be special to you, and I can't do this anymore"

 

If you can't do it anymore, just don't do it. No need to make a big dramatic fuss about it. That's the only way to preserve your dignity in this situation. If someone wants to talk to you, they will. She isn't. It might be a tough pill to swallow but simply dealing with the bitter taste is much better than spitting it out by saying "you'll always be special to me but I know that I will never be special to you." If you want to stop being the stereotypical "nice guy," then here's your first opportunity. Stop trying to leverage sympathy out of her with your emotions.

 

This whole situation where you're basically threatening to cut off contact because you don't feel "special" will just make you look weak because she isn't contacting you anyways. If by chance she really does want to talk to you, she will when she can. There's no sense tarnishing your image in the meantime. If you just forget about it in the meantime, and not complain about how un-special you feel, she might actually respect you for it.

 

Again, if you can't do it anymore, then just don't. Best of luck.

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Dude, you're like a girl friend to her. You're the nice guy friend. Soft, cuddly, teddy bear that's cute and fun to hug from time to time. The problem is teddy bears don't have a dick. And she can sit you on a shelf and forget about you when she doesn't need you.

 

Stop thinking anything you say or do with her has any romantic connotation. It doesn't. Hasn't since the fifth grade.

 

Find a woman who sees you as a man rather than her cute teddy bear friend from the fifth grade.

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You've wasted enough time. Persistence does not pay off. If she had ever been interested in you romantically, she'd have snapped you up in between boyfriends over the years or dropped a boyfriend to be with you.

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Ok, so small update. I manned up, told her plainly that I don't want to be her friend, nor have I ever wanted to be her friend, as I am attracted to her and that is the truth, and that I wanted that to be clear between us. Then I asked her, with that said, if she wanted to go out to watch a movie tomorrow...

 

..and she said yes.

 

I'm honestly afraid to be happy xD

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healing light

Yeah, I am actually against the grain on this one. While I do think you've given her a lot of time, it doesn't sound like you guys have ever had time in touch while you've both been single. I certainly wouldn't cry and sit in a car holding a guy friend's hand who was just a friend. I would be very weary of giving him the wrong idea. I think she was probably a bit embarrassed and dealing with that crap so she didn't contact you or was waiting for you to contact her.

 

In any case, you were honest so now you won't have to torture yourself with what if's. Hope it pans out for you.

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Good luck and hope things work out. Keep us updated. I just find it odd that there was this much hand holding and nothing came of that. Usually a woman would be escalating the touching if she was interested. maybe she was just confused because so much time has gone by.

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I want to thank everyone who replied, I really appreciate your input. Only 2 and a half hours to go till I pick her up.

 

Well, to be fair, she was really upset at that moment, so I don't think that the first thing on her mind was escalating things. Also, something I forgot to mention, her latest ex-boyfriend (who she considers her worst one ever) is still trying to get back together with her. He even showed up at her work place the other day, which she told me greatly annoyed her. All in all, she dislikes/hates every relationship she has had, and according to her every boyfriend was worse than the last (about 3-4 in total, which is about the same number of gf's I've had). My guess is that since this last one might still be a bit fresh, she doesn't want to jump into anything serious right now, even if she feels that something could happen between us. As a matter of fact, when she accepted going out with me today, she said sure, that she just doesn't want to feel any pressure. My plan is simply to show her a good time, have fun and relax from a stressful week together (with lots of flirting of course). I honestly don't have a problem with this, as I just got out from a really possessive relationship earlier this year and I also want to take things slow.

 

Anyway guys, thank you again for everything. I'll update later tonight, hopefully with good news. Wish me luck!

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Well guys, I'm back. I think it went really great. She said she had lots of fun, and at the end of the night I told her to trust me and to close her eyes, then I gave her a kiss on the cheek. I asked her if it was worth trusting me, and she said yes. We are seeing each other again. Thank for everything guys!

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