Crushing Teenage Girl

by Anonymous

I've never heard of anyone in the same situation as me. I'm not a stalker or freaky person, I swear. And I've searched and searched and still have not found a situation like mine.

Freshman year in high school I fell for this boy. I didn't have any classes with him, but within days after deciding I liked him, it was brought to my attention that his locker was right next to mine.

I'm not a shy girl, but this boy had this effect on me, and talking to him was the scariest thing I could have dreamed up at the time. When he walked by or came to his locker, afterward I'd shake visibly and usually I'd be depressed that he didn't talk to me and just walked away.

Half the time I stared as he left, watching him get lost in the crowd of the hallways. That whole year it was up and down, a couple of times friends accidentally made it obvious that I liked him by revealing to him that I liked him, in a subtle way.

He knew I existed, I know this for sure. But I could not bring myself to talk to him. Especially during the middle of the school year I felt trapped, because I was in too deep into the year to just walk up to him and introduce myself.

There were many times that we silently opened our lockers, not saying a word to each other. My crush grew. And eventually it consumed my life. I knew I was only in love with what I imagined him to be; one cannot fall in love with someone they don't know.

It was a mixture of how he walked, talked (to others) and obviously, his appearance, and many other things. And of course I have synesthesia, a sensory disorder, and somehow in a weird way that's hard to explain I think that took part in attaching me to him.

There would be times where he looked at me different, or shot a nervous look in my direction and even an incident when I thought he smiled at me, but for the most part he was so shy he showed nothing.

I felt really stupid for liking him in the first place, but I felt even more stupid when, by the end of the year, I had made a big deal about him and made him this huge part in my life. Freshman year ended and I had not talked to him once.

Over the summer, it was a little easier to forget about him because I was not seeing him everyday. I thought maybe I'd get over him during the summer and sophomore year I could just move on.

But around the middle of summer this crazy idea had planted itself in my head. I thought that maybe if I told him through a computer message that I liked him, I would be giving him that nudge he needed.

I thought it would all be amazing and my dream come true, and that it would work exactly how I wanted it to. Memories from times I had thought he liked me were swirling around in my head, plus I was pretty confident because all that year people had told me I was pretty and a good amount of guys had asked me out.

So I did it. I told the boy I never even talked to that I liked him. I didn't eat for days. And when I checked the message's status a few days later it said 'read' and I broke down. He had read it and nothing happened. No reply. Nothing. I cried till I got sick. Mostly out of embarrassment.

It took the rest of the summer to recuperate and up until this very day. But through it all I had realized that mostly I just wanted to tell him, it didn't matter as much as I thought whether or not he liked me back. But it was still very hard.

Every day was a struggle, especially when I ended up in one of his classes. It was embarrassing, and my self-esteem dropped super low. Everyday I fell for the boy over again, as if it was meant to be even harder on me.

I've learned this year he is a whole lot more shy than I thought before, and that there is a small possibility that that is what had held him back, but I was careful as to not get my hopes up.

I wasn't going to play with false hope, and think that maybe he likes me after all this. So I'm working on accepting the fact that he doesn't like me. And I know that I should not expect that from a person who doesn't even know me.

A lot this year he has acted as if he is nervous and tense around me, and shifts between trying to keep my eye contact and avoiding it. I don't understand him, and I just automatically assume that it's because the message I sent him makes it extremely awkward to be around me.

I've tried taking my mind off of him and have been talking to a lot of other guys, but nothing is the same. Even though I don't know him he has a special place inside me, and some kind of hold on me.

But I guess what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Once again, I promise I'm not a scary stalker person. Just a crushing teenage girl.