Caving like the prom queen on prom night

Ok so hiatus shmatus..

Anyway today I was thinking about crushes; not just any crush folks, but crushes on friends! I haven't had a crush since high school. Wait thats a lie. I had one in college, we ended up dating, and he became a total whacko or was always a whacko.. details, details. So the lesson to be learned here I think is that crushes on friends may be best kept to yourself.. and maybe close friends, but not the loud mouthed mutual friend.. or maybe the loud mouth mutual friend b/c then they'd actually be revealing the crush, not you... But I digress..

By the end of my senior year of college, I seriously cannot count on one hand (and dont even remember) how many times some guy revealed their feelings in some strange way - Guy: I always thought you were hot. Me: Um thanks, I'm still not hooking up with you. Guy: I always thought you were a really cool person *wink* Me: Again, that doesn't give you a round trip ticket into my pants.

I mean there is too much at stake once you realize you have a crush on a friend. You start analyzing their every move. You see things in a different light. You might think they're in love with you because they asked you to go to a concert, when in reality you guys were friends in the first place, so what else do friends do but drag each other along to events! You start getting nervous around them, you're jittery, sweaty, just overall not very sauve. This is if you are trying to keep your cool and not reveal your feelings. If you're the go-getter type, even worse, you might come off as over zealous and freak the person the hell out. For all they know, since this heart wrenching battle has been fought within the confines of yourself, you guys are just buddies, chums, compadres.

So say you can't take it and you HAVE to reveal your feelings. I'm going to venture a guess and say 90% of the time, you will effectively ruin a friendship. Why? Well A.) If the person does not feel the same way, then great, now you've put all this pressure on them, and they feel bad, and you feel awkward and now you can't even look them in the face without feeling weird about it. B.) Say the person actually does have similar feelings. You start dating them. The problem here is that you've probably crushed on them so long that you've idealized them in a way. Once you start dating, there comes the epic battle between the person you put on a pedestal and the person who takes a crap in the bathroom every morning. And now you discover, you might not actually like the person as much as you once thought. This just leads to further awkardness b/c you start wanting to end the relationship. And once you've taken a relationship to that special place of romance, the odds of you retracing your steps back to a platonic relationship are almost nil.

So in the end, keep crushes to yourself. As a matter of fact DIE with them! Well no. I think the real lesson is to take one of two actions. 1.) Once you realize you really like someone, start plotting on how you will trap them in your delicate web. Seriously, better to let a crush know earlier than later. It'll hurt less the less time you wait. Taking years to reveal a crush only to be rejected is going to hurt a lot worse than if you took a couple weeks, or maybe even a few months. 2.) Say you get to that point where you've been crushing on someone for like.. ever.. dont throw it all on them at once. Maybe you should take a lesson from one of my suitors and give the "I always thought you were a really cool person *wink* *wink* wink wink wink wink wink" so the person at least gets that you might/probably like them, but doesn't feel pressured to have to give you an answer in any way, especially if the answer is no.

I mean maybe I've missed out on a few opportunities by keeping my crushes to myself. But from what I've experienced, sometimes its just better to have a solid friendship than anything else...