Most people have had an unrequited crush or two, but my fascination comes from the fact that the majority of his feelings are based on snippets. He was never really good friends with her, he’s never had any semblance of a relationship with her other than slightly more than acquaintances. They were never even classmates, and yet here we are 6-7 years later, and yet, I’m almost positive that if she gave him the time of day, he would probably drop everything in his life for the tiny glimmer of a chance that she might want him.
The parts of her you can see are absolutely gorgeous, but you can't judge a girl by her lips alone!
{Image from: Alkemie}
My story probably makes Bob sound like the prototypical geeky guy in a teen flick who’s lusting after the cheerleader. The funny thing is that Bob is actually not that hopeless, but he’s head over heels for a girl that mostly exists in his mind. He met her and talked to her a few times-- they even went out once or twice and from that alone, he feels like he knows her, but the fact is that he doesn’t. I promise, Bob is not a loser! The thing is, this is what we all do when we fall for someone. We meet them, we like them, and before we know if we’ve formed an image in our minds of who we think this person is complete with fictitious storylines that make this person out to be some Hollywood perfect ideal of a human being. Now I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with a little bit of idealism in a relationship, but what if your perfect person solely exists in your head? I can almost guarantee that if this girl were to suddenly develop feelings for Bob and they went out for a little while, he would probably get tired of her and realize that she’s not as great as he thought she was.
Case in point, when I was in high school, there was a guy who liked me. He was really cute and pretty popular, but I’d never really thought of him in that way. One day, I found out that he had a massive crush on me and so we proceeded to talk for the next month or so. I remember in one of our first conversations he mentioned how perfect I was. Then he proceeded to detail exactly what made me so perfect—the fact that I was so smart and sweet and pretty, etc. At the time, I thought it was really cute, but then every subsequent conversation, if I said something not quite in line with his idea of me, he would brush it off and kind of say oh that’s not really you—but what I was saying was me. Little by little he got to know me and then one day out of the blue, he told me he didn’t like me anymore. Well, being the young naïve thing I was, I was completely blown away—what had I done? It wasn’t until later that I realized that this boy had constructed this whole image of me in his head based on minor interactions at school and then when he finally saw the real me, there was no way I could compare to his perfect picture.
I’m sharing these stories not to embarrass anyone, but to illustrate how easy it is to get carried away with someone. I’ve done it. We’ve all done it. The key is to remember that everybody is human and that no matter how much you think you know someone just by your observations and from what other people say, you really don’t until you actually get to know them.
