Dear Scott,

It’s finally here; the end of the semester.  I’m not sure whether to scream with joy or cry with resignation, but either way, I made it.  I think.  As glad as I am to finish up the school year, I have a problem: I have a crush and it’s completely unreciprocated.  I’ve liked this person for over four years and never had the courage to approach them.  I actually did something sort of dumb recently and tried to find out who my crush’s crush was in the hopes that they’d name me.  Guess who wasn’t named?  Yeah. . .

So, I’m wondering if you have any advice for moving on or dealing with this kind of thing?  Anything would be helpful.  Thank you.

-Crushed by a Crush

Dear Crushed,

It goes without saying, as your moniker shows, that crushes can, well, crush you.  Crushes can be tricky; if they’re ever confronted, it usually only goes one of two ways: your heart soars and flutters as your crush admits they also have a crush on you or they can’t/don’t reciprocate it for whatever reason.  Developing a crush usually turns into a 50/50 gamble — but it doesn’t have to.

You’ll inevitably develop more crushes in the future and there’s a good chance you’ll harbor more than one at a time.  These will help you move on.  A good strategy would be to set some goal for yourself — completing a race, finally finishing a project that was left on the wayside, effectively cleaning out your closet and donating the unneeded clothes, etc.  You could also return to an older passion that you may have neglected recently.  The underlying reasoning behind this bit of advice is that these things have the potential to sort of “fill the void” that unreciprocated feelings or a broken heart might leave.

My favorite way of handling being crushed by a crush is to consider “What would Beyoncé do?”  Blast “Irreplaceable” and have a glass of wine with some of your closest friends.  I promise you it helps, even if your crush didn’t cheat on you in the car you bought them.

Strangely enough, you don’t want to try to avoid thinking about your crush.  Why?  The White Bear Effect.  This effect occurs when one consciously attempts to not think of something (a white bear, for instance), but by doing so, they conjure up the thoughts of the subject they were attempting to avoid.  To tackle this when you think about your crush, it is best to not panic and to remember it is not a “sign” of anything.  Remind yourself of who really deserves your attention: someone who you really care about — you.  

Take care of yourself and you’ll be over this crush in no time.