How to deal with unrequited feelings

[sparklingstar]

Hi, so there's this person who I have a crush on for a year now. We weren't super close friends, but I've known them since childhood, and basically text three or four times a year since our lives don't have that much in common. I know this may sound like an unlikely scenario to develop a crush on someone, but it happened for me anyway.

So the problem is, they're going to college this summer, and the results just got announced last week. Before the announcement, I have cheered them on for a couple of times, both before and after their entrance exam. I also texted them about my new job and shared what's going on in my life. However, despite my attempts at showing them that I care about them, they haven't texted me the result.

I think I'm feeling kinda sad about this, because I thought I was good enough a friend to share this kind of life-changing info with. When I received my acceptance letter, I told them after a week because I was too nervous to text them right away haha. So maybe they're just trying to find a better time to tell me about it? Or maybe I'm just putting too much feeling into our friendship, that they don't care about me that much anyway. I'm also scared that what if they failed terribly, and if I ask them, I'll make things worse for them? To be honest, I'm afraid that they just think I'm annoying and am replying to my messages because they're a nice person. I honestly have no clue what to do with my feelings now.

[Sam W]

Hi sparklingstar,

It sounds like this might be a time to allow yourself to feel your feelings without trying to read too much into the incident that actually caused them.

What I mean by that is: it's absolutely okay to feel sad or disappointed that a friend didn't respond to something, or to feel anxious about not knowing how they feel about you when you've shown them you cared about them. But trying to divine why your friend isn't responding is likely to just frustrate and stress you out more because it's one of those things you can't really know without them giving you context. Does that make sense?

Too, there are lots of reasons for a non-response that have nothing to do with you or how they feel about you; since it sounds like it's college planning season, they could be swamped with prep or dealing with a bunch of administrative stuff they have to do for school. They could have family in town. Heck, they could be like me and do the thing were they see the text, intend to respond, and then two days later realize they didn't and now they feel weird about responding. And if they're someone you generally have a good relationship with, I suspect those kind of reasons are more likely than them thinking you're annoying.

[sparklingstar]

hi Sam,
thank you for the reply!

I've been allowing myself to feel those sad feelings these days, and try my best not to blame myself or trash talk myself. I guess it's been great so far since I feel less troubled by it.

So now I'm wondering, do you think it'll be okay for me to ask how they're doing after a couple of weeks? I'm thinking around mid-July. So that even if they're feeling all stressed out by college stuff now, perhaps in July they'll feel better, and it'll be more appropriate of me to text them?

[Michaela]

Hi sparklingstar,

Yes, that sounds like a very kind thing to do to check up on them and let them know that you are thinking of them. You could even mention things that you wrote above like that you know they might be stressed with preparations at the moment but that you wanted to check in and see how everything is going. I know for me those are some of my favorite types of texts to receive because they can remind me of the support system that I have which can be important in times of transition like you mentioned they might be going through at the moment.