WAYUT: The calamity of a crush

Shame *ding ding* shame *ding ding*.

Dear Meg,

Admit feelings to a friend, yes or no? Ruination either way.

Sincerely,

Secret Admirer

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Dear Secret Admirer,

Hahahahahahaha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

I’m laughing with you, not at you, fellow comrade.

To know me is to know that I love telling people I have feelings for them. I’m addicted to the stuff. As a reformed yearner, I spent my adolescence pining in isolated torture, letting my feelings fester until they burst out of me like that little alien from the movie Alien. And oh, would they burst.

In plain terms, whether or not you admit your feelings to your friend depends on the circumstances. If you’re two grown, single adults and the only thing stopping you is your own fear or ego, then yes, share away. But if you’re pining after someone in a relationship or you’re asking me if you should yell “I object!” at a wedding you’re going to soon or something, then I would advise to maybe invest in a journal.

Your choice to use the word “ruination” is telling, in that I believe it speaks to broader stress and shame you may be attributing to your feelings. (But if I’m, like, totally projecting here, feel free to click away.)

Two weeks ago, I was explaining to my therapist that I struggled to make eye contact with my crush and it was stressing me out.

I said, “I’m afraid that if I make eye contact with them, they’ll be able to Jimmy Neutron brain-blast into my brain and know all the things I’ve thought about them.”

So, yeah. I understand the ruin of it all.

As someone who grew up being told implicitly and explicitly that I wasn’t good enough, the predominating thought that ruled my brain anytime I had a crush was OH NO. In general, I think a lot of fat women experience a certain shame when it comes to having feelings for someone—I’m not the one who gets the happy ending, so why should I set myself up for failure by hoping for one? Hoping feels foolish.

Part of why having feelings for someone can feel so calamitous (to me, anyway) is that you don’t have control over your own feelings or theirs. Your crush turns to lust turns to love, meanwhile you have no idea if they feel the same. You can’t make them love you back by thinking really hard about it (believe me, I’ve tried). You’re either trapped by the weight of your feelings, or you tell them how you feel, which I imagine isn’t dissimilar to the sensation of flinging yourself off a cliff without a rope.

Frankly, I don’t know if I have good advice for getting over crush-shame. I only just started unpacking this with my therapist a few weeks ago. I did make eye contact with my crush recently though. It was thrilling.

The only thing that’s really helped me get over the fear of telling someone how I feel is my bigger fear of being a coward.

There have been three instances in my life where I’ve told my Big Crushes how I feel about them. Out of those three instances, I was only certain one liked me back once (and I was wrong :)). I didn’t reveal my feelings because I was thinking, Certainly, we will date after this! I told them how I felt because I don’t want to be the sort of person who’s ruled by fear.

Your decision to share how you feel shouldn’t be rooted in whether or not they feel the same—you should share how you feel because life is about being romantic. In relationships, with yourself, in the way you consume the world, you should devour your life with a ferocity and an earnest love for living because no one else is going to do that for you. Living is one thing, being alive is another. To be alive is to be brave. Those simply living are some of the most miserable people I’ve ever met (hell, I’ve had crushes on a few of them). You shouldn’t want to be like them. You should want to be brave. The only thing worse than living with the fact that your crush doesn’t like you back is living with the fact that you’re a coward.

You’re allowed to feel the enormity of your feelings. You’re allowed to speak about them. If things go well, yay! You get to kiss, probably. If not, then at least you weren’t a big giant baby and did something about it. I get that it’s scary—sharing your feelings always is. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.

If it’s any consolation, trust that sharing your feelings gets easier with practice. The more you reframe it as being committed to living a romantic life, the easier it is to let the potential for rejection slide right out of your mind.

It would suck if they didn’t like you back. It would suck even more for you to live in perpetual apathy. People who play things cool or try to be coy are, in my humble opinion, losers. And juvenile. Be earnest! Love that you have such love inside you! Share how you feel! Be romantic! Maybe you’ll kiss!

Talk soon,

Meg