Scarleteen

I have been pretty much head over heels in love with a certain girl for over 2 years now. During that time I’ve been in a relationship with someone else and I’ve had other small crushes on various people, but whatever I do I just seem to keep coming back to her. We were never in a relationship, we were barely even friends. We never hung out outside of school and even in school we usually only saw each other briefly in the hallways. And now we are both in college I haven’t even seen her in almost 6 months but I still have such strong feelings for her. I don’t really know what to do. I’d love some tips for getting over her? I’ve never had such a hard time moving on from someone I wasn’t even in a relationship with. Or maybe I need closure? I’m honestly just very confused and starting to feel a bit hopeless.

If it makes you feel any better, I was recently dating a woman who was in a very similar conundrum. She got through it, for the record, it just took some time and some dedication to get over it.

One of the things I said to her when she talked to me about this was that I think, in some ways, it can be harder to get over long, unrequited crushes because often when you're in a spot like this, you can have spent so long soaking in your fantasies about this, and your ideal of that other person that there's no reality to temper it with. You say you have strong feelings, but you also say you barely knew her, so chances are those strong feelings aren't even about that person, but your idea/ideal of her, which isn't real. You've had no fights, no times that person was unappealing to you or annoying or hurtful, no normal hum-drum daily life stuff (their morning fart ritual, for instance, or how they leave their laundry freaking everywhere) to temper these feelings and this idea with the reality of this person and being involved in them.

It can really elevate the person to this impossible pedestal, and take your feelings with it, you know?

Honestly, my best advice would be to do two things now:
1) Decide for yourself that you're moving on. Be like, "Self, this is ridiculous and getting in the way of my having actual relationships I want. Enough, we're moving on." And just do your best to stick to it. When you think about her, move your mind to something else. Leave yourself notes about it. Just keep doing these things, over and over, as much as you need to. Even just getting sick of having to do those things can help.
2) Date. As much as you can and are up to it, just go on a bunch of casual dates. Remind yourself how it is with for-real interactions and people you do spend time with. Open yourself up to other -- again, real -- possibilities.

How does that sound?

Thank you, I think I can do that. I think part of what’s making it so difficult to move on is that while we weren’t close friends the time we did spend together felt kind of special. I’m not sure if she’s at all into women, but there were a number of moments when it seemed like she was making subtle moves (grabbed my hands when she saw me, persistently offered to drive me home even though it was way out of her way) but then again it’s hard to know with girl/girl situations whether they’re being flirty or friendly. I think these unanswered questions of like was there hope? Could she maybe have had feelings for me too? are really getting in the way of me moving on, because i think a part of me really doesn’t want to stop thinking about her and date other people and get over it. Does that make sense?

It does! I have very often personally felt like sometimes the loss or letting go of possibility -- of something that didn't happen, but we wanted, and felt like it could have -- can be some of the hardest kind of loss/letting go.

One other option for you, which may be obvious, is to contact her and just ask her if she wants to go out with you next time she's home. You'd of course ave to be open to the range of responses she could have, but it answer a lot of these "what if, maybe..." thoughts.

Ya, I’ve thought about doing that a few times. I’d love to, I just can’t seem to screw up enough courage. Thanks for the advice, happy new year !