so. we being honest here?

I need advice. I really, really, really need advice.

I'll say the scenario first, so you guys don't have opinions before I start:

I like a person. A lot. I like their personality and their awkwardness and our shared love of Hamilton. I like how this person looks and acts and is. I've been harboring this crush for a while now. We went on a trip with our Odyssey of the Mind team and I spent a lot of time with this person and was still unhealthily crushing over them.

Then they left. They were a grade older than I am and they're heading off to high school. There's a high chance I'll never get into a conversation with this person again and they'll never know I had (still have, really) a huge crush on them.

OK, now for the catch: this person is a girl.

I'm a girl.

And I'm so confused about it that I haven't told my parents, any of my friends, or anyone else I know. I'm literally so confused about it that I'm on this frickin' website at eleven at night, asking for advice from a bunch of people I've never met but love.

So, guys. What should I do? How should I get over this? Do you know how other straight people in my life will react if I tell them? How are you, as a straight person (I'm assuming, if you are one) reacting to this? Am I a sad hopeless mess? (Ha. I know the answer to that last one. yup)

Thank you for being brave enough to share this with us. We hope your fellow Chatterboxers respond with support and respectful comments.

 We recommend that you check out The Slam http://www.cicadamag.com/theslam if you are 14 or older. You might want to post this there. Other 14+ are going through similar things and are very supportive and helpful answering questions about gender and sexuality. We hope you get the answers you need!

~Admin  

OK, this won't make much sense till my post gets up, but: Sorry if I killed the vibe! Y'all were being all innocent and lighthearted and here I am storming in with my messed-up thoughts XD

I still hope I get advice from someone, though, because I'm seriously lost. 

As a matter of fact, I happen to be a guy (who has never had a crush) with a lot of friends who did have crushes in middle school and high school, so I can tell you some of the "symptoms", so to speak.

I understand that some middle school and high school boys are cool and suave, able to pick up "the laidez" with ease, but never having been friends with any of the cool and suave variety, I can't say much about them. I guess if you like the cool and suave crew, be cool and suave too, and if you want them to go away, tell them that and then go find some hoopy froods to hang out with.

When your average Joe Schmoe has a crush on someone, he tends to kind of obsess over her more. Whenever they share a class, he'll go out of his way to agree with her on points or deliver his best jokes to her. If they're friendly already, he may try play fighting with her (it depends on the guy's personality in question).

Honestly, the best way to see if a guy has a crush on you is watch his friends while you two interact. If his friends are anything like me or 95% of the other guys in the universe, they'll be snickering because it's absolutely hilarious to see our friends going crazy over a girl and pretending to be cool and suave.

If a fellow in your grade asks to speak to you privately and a small swarm of his mates are laughing hysterically in the background, you're probably about to get asked out. We're laughing because we're waiting for you to dump him. We don't think much of each other.

If you have a crush, I'd recommend just asking him or her to a dance sometime. You guys don't have to go as a couple, just go as friends. Hang out with your crush sometime and really think about if you're enjoying yourself. If you're having a good time, then hey, maybe you two can date. If it's really awkward or you're not enjoying the company of another person, holding off is probably a good idea. Being forward about asking someone to hang out with you isn't a bad thing. If your friends laugh, you can tell them to shut it. From what I know, girls are generally a bit nicer than guys on this subject and will say things like, "Go for it!" and not "LOL You're about to get dumped, hahaha, rip you."

In response to Why do you care?:

1, 2, and 5 are all realistic. I'd disagree a bit with some of the others- sometimes people try 6 to bring up the conversation of liking people, so he can try to guess your interest. 7 and 9 come of being socially awkward, which is what most middle schoolers tend to be. 8 isn't necessarily true as well- I have a friend who is very touchy-feely (to the point where as a joke, we sat in each other's laps) but he has a strong crush on a girl and touches her less than he normally would touch people.

Anyway, don't worry too much about this stuff. Study hard, play hard, and get some sleep.  

You guys have heard this story before, but I want to post it again because it's still really bothering me and I'm really upset about it.

Here's what happened.

It all started, really, with a friend of mine. Let's call him Steve. Now, Steve is a very good friend of mine, and it also happens that we live very close to one another part-time. So I went with him and his family somewhere once, and on the way back he asked me who I liked.

I didn't answer, honestly, because I don't like saying it; it feels like I'm giving something up. I much prefer it if people guess, because that way they really have to think about it. So I let him guess, and he guessed right on the first try-- let's call my crush Parker.

Now we've got to go backward a few notches, okay? At the beginning of the year, I liked someone else-- let's call him Anthony. And I told Steve I liked Anthony. And then he asked me if it was okay if he told Anthony, because he knew Anthony liked me. So I said yes.

But this felt different, if you see what I mean; like the difference between practice and a game. So I told Steve my crush, but I definitely wasn't intending for him to TELL anyone! But, in a state of genius, he told Parker I liked him.

I didn't want Parker to know. I wanted to tell him myself when I was good and ready. But Steve just couldn't wait, could he? Spreading gossip is really his style.

And then things got kicked up another notch, when Steve told me that Parker likes me BACK.

So I know what you may be thinking. "Oh, wow, that's fantastic! Congrats! Whoohoo! You're lucky!" or something.

Sorry, no. Not at all.

In fact, since Steve told Parker I liked him, we both have been going out of our way to avoid each other. I quite literally flinch if he comes near me. I've always had this weird sense of "I need to look behind me," but now it's almost a twitch. And it's just stress, stress, stress for every class I have with him because I always think he's looking at me and I've been freaking out. It feels like a boulder's been lifted off of my shoulders after school every day. And I really can't deal. I just want it to go back to before, because before he was really easy to talk to and we had really long, interesting conversations about Harry Potter.

So, moral of the story: Not every two-way crush is a Disney movie.

Oh, I got that from the Internet. Thing is I wanted to know that myself, so....

First off, I am posting anonymously not because I...don't want you to know who I am, but because a person involved in this story knows my CB name, and though they're not interested in the CB, or me on the CB. I'm not sure, so just to be safe, in case he ever looks here. And if somehow I make it obvious who I am, please do not point that out. Thank you.

Backtrack to 4th grade. New boy arrives, let's call him Jon. Kinda liked him, but not really. I mean, not quite a crush. Actually, just friends. With like 1% of something else...I guess, as I read on an AE Crush Thread...my "go-to"? Whatevs. 4th grade isn't important. I'm just letting you know when he came.

On to 5th grade. So I actually started liking him. Not for looks, but because...I loved his personality. He was into similar things I was into, and I just...I dunno, you can't really list explanations for this kind of thing. So I had a crush on him now, like a lot. At this point we are all still cinnamon buns, and don't have couples. I mean, there's one, kind of...whatever. I started hoping and wishing he liked me back, every day. I wasn't awkward around him. I was pretty happy. I started going to afterschool theater, and he was there too. We were the only people there in our grade, so naturally, we stayed together.

Then there were these little things...like on the playground, where he called me "gorgeous" in a kind of joking way, but a kind of not.....? Then we would...almost flirt, kind of, and we would have this thing where I had candy packed in my packback, and would give some to him...I brushed my hair twice in the mornings, looking back and putting it into words, it sounds dumb, but at the time I was really happy. I was fairly sure he liked me, and kept planning to ask him, I rehearsed it in my head, but never actually did it. Then someone came up to me, let's call him Bob (I had already told Bob I liked Jon) and they said 'The person you like likes you back.' I blinked then turned my head and yelled "Okay!" like someone had called for me (it was a noisy classroom, so Bob probably believed that someone had called me) and walked away. I don't think I showed any expression, but inside, I didn't know what to think. I just felt thoroughly confused. I mean, Jon had been pretty obvious, but...still hearing it out loud...I started wondering if Bob had told Jon the same thing. And he probably did.

Jon and I mostly hung out afterschool, since we were in different classes. So crazy as all this is...nobody knew about all this, because we talked and laughed afterschool, and everyone was already focused on an almost couple (that I will not name, but is ADORABLE!). 

At one point we held hands.

aaaaaaaa

Then one day we played some game, and he said some weird things, not about me, just weird in general, but looking back...perfectly normal, no problem with them. But for some reason, it upset me. I think I was having a bad day.

Then one of my biggest regrets,

For some reason, that upset me, and I started deliberately avoiding him, and being really rude to him. I can't imagine how surprised he must have felt. I don't know. He never said anything to me about it like, "hey, did something happen?" because we had never really made it official to each other that we liked each other....Eventually he got over it, I think.  I really don't know.

I was regretting my sudden coldness, but not like-liking him.

6th grade. The year everything changed. So a few weeks after school started, he got a girlfriend, let's call her Mary. He was sitting across from her one day at lunch (this is the day of the announcemnt) and I said, "What are you doing?" really playfully and I expected him to say "Eating lunch, duh." But he said, "Maybe on a date?" I didn't think he was serious, so I told my friend...um, Kylie and Kylie ran around saying jokingly, "JON AND MARY!!" and soon everyone crowded around him taking pictures and stuff, and I realized, oh, okay, they are actually a couple. Everyone was like "OMG LOOK AT THIS COUPLE" because this was the first couple, so we all found it so...OMG! And I ran around holding a pretend mike and interviewing them, "Why do you like Jon/Mary?"

Then I realized that I didn't really think they were a fit couple. They didn't..click. So no surprise, they broke up a few days later.

And I started liking him again. Crushing really hard.

But we were still good friends. So I managed to be normal around him, though sometimes with a flutter inside of me. 

Then he got a new girlfriend, call her Anna, a few months later. This time, he really really liked her, and she really liked him too. It was sweet.

So I held back. Anna was a nice person, so I didn't want to be mean.

A few months into it, they kissed. They planned it out, so afterschool they went to some place out of range of the cameras and kissed. Just a peck according to Anna, nothing like...like you would see in movies. just for the heck of sneaking in a kiss.

I felt uncomfortable about that, on the day they were going to do it, not because I secretly liked Jon, but because, even if it had been someone else, I didn't like the idea. So my crushing wavered a bit because I thought, "Ok, say somehow we get together...he wouldn't hold with just being flirting friends, we'd have to be a couple. I'm not sure I would mind that too terribly, but my gut tells me no. Especially....my mom does a lot around the school, and if she were to hear....But kissing? "Couple" or not (because couples aren't reeeeally couples in my grade, you just get the satisfaction of saying so, of occasionally holding hands, of being "together." But it's not like real dating or anything.) I would NEVER kiss a boy in middle school. NEVER."

Afterwards, I was fine though, I'm like, if they want to kiss, whatever.

Then, about a month

continue later 

Hey, to everybody who's said a kind word and tried to help me out:

Thank you. So much. I really had no idea how people would react, but you guys have proven the Chatterbox will always be full of awesome people. I think you're right; this crush is like any other, and though it seems big now, I'll hopefully get over it with time (and some chocolate and sappy music XD). @hey..., @Can't think of a good alias, @Kitten - gracias, grazie, merci, you've all made me feel a whole lot better about my situation. I'll hang around and see if I can help any of you out in exchange. :)

@Admins - another thank you for your support! You're right, there's no filter to my random spurts of late-night CBing, and the Slam will probably accomodate my weirdness better :D Thanks for being here. 

Yeah, I'm just a sad kid, but at least now I feel a lot better. Thank you, CB. <3

You are very welcome! ~Admin 

This thread is now closed.