“I’ll take my unrequited love to my grave.” Familiar with this?

Or “I will never tell you that I love you.”

The great sages sang of the tale of unrequited love, crushes, and one-sided love. High schoolers carved their pains out onto the bathroom doors. I used to think that it’s unfathomable to tell your crush that you like them. Especially, when the chances that you’ll end up together is like a speck of dust. Minuscule, hopeless chance. Plus, imagine:

the utter embarrassment, the terrible fear of losing them, rejection, FOMO, being ridiculed into a laughing stock, being shunned by them or possibly hurting them. 

For whatever reasons, you ended up bottling these feelings in your heart. However, what if I tell you that I did otherwise.

I told my crush that I like him.

cue: more horrified face

For a starter, he has a girlfriend. And I barely know a thing about him. All I know is that his smile and cheeky grin warm up the entire world and he sits in the back of the class. We have never say a word to each other. I think he knows I exist but who knows what he think of me.

I had two options: take my secret crush to the grave and never speak a word to him OR say otherwise. Equally vexing.

Given that I gave my words to myself that “I am the possibility of courage”, the only thing a courageous person do is to do a courageous thing. And that entails the latter option.

I took action.

Yes, I confessed.

And he even say ” you are really beautiful.”

What happened?

One month before:

On the last weekend of the class, the girls booked a restaurant for our class party. At that time, I had never speak to him before. I went up to him. Dizzy from holding my breath. I asked him out.

“Hey Michael (not his real name), are you coming to the party? We really want you to join. All the girls are crazy for you. They will be so happy to have you there.”

I was spitting out my words like a machine gun firing bullets aimlessly. I asked him out, out to the party.

He looked stunned and perplexed – like what the heck are you talking about. Who are you even. Seeing how his eyebrows burrowed into a knot, I quickly scanned around and grabbed a nearest friend to persuade him.

“Janice, tell Michael, you want him to be there!”

He eventually agreed and I was over the moon.

The restaurant was bustling with all our classmates and 10 min was all I had to talk with him. The next day, I casually texted him and the conversation drifted to this.

me: help me find someone who looks like you.
him: why? you like someone with a funny face like me? lol
me: I like someone whose eyes close when they smile.

after 10 min
him: wait, what? you like me?
me: erm yea… but I’m not going to pursue it.”

I tried to be as rational as possible.

“it’s against my integrity to go after someone with a girlfriend”

Yep, I admitted to him that I like him. Even though I said that, deep inside, I secretly hope that maybe, one day, he would be single. Talk about being evil.

As the class progressed, I found myself reacting to what he did and didn’t do. I continuously waited on edge for his replies, instead of concentrating on my work. I even tried to pick someone else to have crush on to distract myself! Talk about being delulu. I turned away from helping him with his project and lost my temper at him. My focus was waning, from all the stuff I tried to distract myself with. I had enough of this internal battle.

Over the weekend, I met my coach and I had a realization.

I also choose to be single because I choose to be single. Because I am the one who chose, I empower myself to take action from the seat of power.

24 hour later:

Before the end of the final class, I asked if I can talk to him briefly.

me: I have something I’d like to complete with you.
him: yeah, what’s up?

me: All these time, I haven’t been treating you as a friend. In fact, I was actually coveting that you break up with your girlfriend. I blamed you, your girlfriend, and myself for the unfortunate circumstances. The impacts are that I didn’t know how to act around you, I lost my patience at you and lost my energy. Now, I’m able to discern things through. I choose to meet you when you have a girlfriend because I choose to meet you when you have a girlfriend. I’m completed on this crush and from this moment on, I’m truly your friend.

him: ohh… thank you for telling this to me.

I saw how I dictate the right/wrong and even zero in on his flaws, to make me like him less. I was pretending not to let go of this crush. When in fact, I was actually scared to admit that this relationship does not work.

An hour later (40 minutes after midnight)

He suddenly called me up.

me: what’s up?
him: hmmm… first of all, just want to let you know you are really beautiful tonight. Like really, you are.
me: ohhh lol why are you trying to shake my conviction?
him: oh no, I’m sorry.
me: lol i’m joking. go on~
him: well, I just want to tell that you are really something. some people can choose to pursue this crush till the end but you didn’t. thank you for that. It definitely must not have been easy. I respect you for that.

I was really touched to hear him say that.

me: before we end the call, I want to ask why you took so long to reply my messages? i figure that you got a lot of stuff to do but I’m not sure if you are like me – that when I breakdown, I just cut off all communication. So i’m just worried and unsure of what to take of your messages.
him: nah, it’s when I’m bored, i don’t read my messages. i just play games.
me: got it.
him: in this class, we became more than friends. we are like family.
me: yeah, I’m glad that I got you around. Goodnight.

Well, is this what you expect? It’s still a happy ending nonetheless.

The point of this < when you communicate responsibly and freely express yourself, you gain an immense amount of power and energy.

Funny enough, now that I looked back, what I did to him constitute to “friendzoning” my crush.