about crushes (and how to manage them…)

Here’s the deal- crushes are fun for about three days. The rush of having someone new in mind while putting on a little extra lip gloss JUST IN CASE you run into him at the bar with your girls, or having your heart flutter whenever your phone lights up (again, JUST IN CASE it’s him). Next thing you know, it’s been a month. There aren’t any new developments with this guy and your friends are starting to get tired of hearing the same recycled stories over and over again about your last rendezvous with him two weeks ago. You’re putting on do not disturb because for some reason you think it will make you check your phone less to see if you got a text from him yet because why the hell have you been on delivered for 47 minutes already?! (spoiler: it doesn’t work, you are still going to be checking every 5 minutes). You’re waking up already thinking about him and suddenly you’re pissed off at 7 AM for no reason. You have tried every distraction in the books- walks through nature, a new podcast, a workout class, begrudgingly redownloading hinge (and deleting it ten minutes later after realizing there is zero hope) - nothing works, you’re still thinking about him. Alright, it’s time for a change.

Let’s be realistic. There is no magical way to get over a crush, but hear me out-

He could be a great guy, sure. He could like the same books or the same music as you, he could be the kind of guy who holds doors open for strangers, and yeah you’re able to trust him holding your drink. He could have great career aspirations and oh my gosh he wants three kids just like you!!! He really really could seem “different”. And maybe he actually is different (if so, congratulations), but Emily Gilmore and Lana Del Rey explain it best: HE’S. JUST. A. MAN. And no matter how smart and kind and funny he may be, guys really do just think differently from us- more simple. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with him, and it doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with you for overcomplicating his actions in your head. Us women, by nature, thrive through make our lives around us beautiful. We romanticize the little things in life and search of making the mundane seem more exhilarating- the boring daily routines of life a little more bearable. In the same way, the second we realize we see a new spark in a guy’s eye when we’re talking to him, or notice him looking at us before anyone else in a group when he makes a joke, we romanticize it. It’s just our nature. Once we start noticing these little things we automatically begin creating deeper meanings to everything. This right here is when the crush begins to go downhill- when we are asking our friends what he could possibly mean when he punctuates his text a little different than usual or when we see a song he puts on his story and spend the next half an hour trying to dissect the deeper meaning of why that specific song and how does it tie back to me. In reality, there most likely is no deeper meaning and we end up getting so in our own heads we end up falling more in love with the version of a guy we created than the actual guy himself.

I personally have spent these 21 years of life so far as one of the most hopeless romantics you could ever meet. It is a seemingly never-ending cycle of getting a crush, building a version of him in my head that is the perfect guy for me, either having my heart broken or realizing he is no where near what I thought he was, finding someone else, and the cycle repeats. I have been trying for so long to wrap my head around what could possibly be wrong with me for falling so hard so fast for some of these guys that have never proven themselves to be anywhere near worth the attention. Suddenly, today I woke up and it hit me like God HIMSELF screamed it at me: of COURSE this is what I do. I am the same girl who cries at sunsets and builds up an entire backstory for anyone who walks past me in the park and has to have pink tulips in my room at all times because its something pretty to look at when I first wake up. I have spent my entire life training myself to find the hidden beauty in absolutely everything to fall in love with living, no matter the circumstances. Because of this, I get so excited to find the beauty in a guy I have a crush on that I end up creating a different, more romanticized version of him in my head than the one that is actually right in front of me.

Well here it is, the soppy yet hard truth of crushes and love and all the grey area in between:

After years of coaching my friends through breakups, watching girls cry over situationships who either treated them horribly or hardly paid any attention to them at all, and dealing with a plethora of my own guy problems, I have finally figured it all out. We can’t keep punishing ourselves for attempting to romanticize our lives by doing it through self-destructive outlets (aka falling for a guy who does one decently nice thing for you one time that sticks with you for the next six months). When you get in these situations and catch your crush getting out of hand, ground yourself and realize this has nothing to do with them and everything to do with you (in a good way). You put so much effort into the other people in your life and God I know, it would feel incredible to finally be the person someone chooses with everything in them- to be someone’s everything. But WAIT FOR IT. If you think having a crush on a guy who gives you attention maybe once a week when he finally feels like it or wants something from you is a good feeling? Just wait until you meet the one who chooses you every day of his life, not just when it’s convenient for him. Realize that you are not in love with the man in front of you right now, you are in love with the idea of this man you created in your head- a physical manifestation of the love you have overflowing in your heart. You are filled with such an overabundance of love it ends up becoming catastrophic when put in the wrong hands, but the only person it hurts is you.

In the meantime, shed that love on other aspects of your life. Write your best friend a hand-written letter listing all your favorite things about her. Go on a long walk in a gorgeous park away from your usual surroundings and listen to the sounds of nature. Pray about someone in your life who seems like their smile has been a mask of what has been truly going on recently. Put on headphones and blast your favorite album and dance around alone in your room. Keep taking pictures of the sunset because no matter what it never gets old. Find new hobbies and pour your heart into them. Shed your love on the things and people who have proven they deserve it, because that love you have in your heart is far too precious to waste on someone who doesn’t even realize they’re on the receiving end of it. Platonic love and self love can be just as fulfilling while you’re waiting on that romance; the one that will live up to the expectations you’ve created through your years of watching romcoms and seeing that elderly man in line at the grocery store with a bouquet of flowers for his wife. Don’t keep over-romanticizing your crush just because you don’t have another outlet for the love you need to let out. See him for who he is, standing right in front of you. There is nothing wrong with a crush, but wait until he proves he’s worth it.