How To Creep Out Your High School Crush

It was the first day of sophomore year when I saw him. I was in line at lunch, and I saw this guy looking for a seat. I watched him find a place and thought to myself, "Damn, he's hot."

I got excited when I went to my next class because there he was! I marched up to him, introduced myself, and then made a point to talk to him every day for the rest of the school year.

Going overboard is an understatement.

Here's the thing. I'm not sure it was a crush so much as it was an infatuation. I'd always wanted to go to China, and this kid was a foreign exchange student from Hong Kong.

Now, until that time, I never had a crush before, and I didn't realize how painfully obvious I was until years later. I had a feeling he didn't see me the same, so I never asked him out. I never asked for a phone number or tried to figure out where he lived. Instead, I made a point to try to talk to him at school so often, he started hiding from me in school.

If he saw me in town when we weren't in school, he hid too. Oops.

Then summer happened.

After his year in the US, he went back to Hong Kong, and he and I started talking more online. Probably because of distance, and being half a planet away, we had an easier time talking. And it was easier for him to get away when I got annoying. (Why no one would tell me this when I'd first get annoying, I don't know.)

Either way, an actual friendship grew. We exchanged songs and pictures of what's going on in our lives and had fun. And when I found out he was going to college not far from me, I got excited.

I convinced my mom to take me to see him, and we made plans to see one another. It was a lot of fun!

And then I got even more cringey

During his first semester at college, he developed a crush on a girl. And for months, it was all he wanted to talk to me about. I had to hear about how pretty she was, and how he'd try to help her with schoolwork, but it never worked out for him.

It wasn't a great feeling. And I realized he was never going to like me, so it was now or never with telling him.

The night I told him, I took out one of my favorite songs at the time. And I sent it to him. It didn't take him long to figure out I had a small crush.

It was Yellowcard's "Only One." I can hear the groands and cringes as you read this sentence.

First rule of crushes, don't tell them you like them with a song

Not long after that fiasco I stopped talking to him for a few months. Not that we had a falling out or anything. I kept my distance so I wouldn't make things weirder than they already were. It solidified my college choice though. I didn't want to follow some guy to a college that didn't like me much.

We all have those moments in our lives where we wish we could erase from history. Using Yellowcard to tell someone you liked them is definitely one of those things I'll never do again.

Last I checked, the guy got married to a girl and has a baby boy. It looks like he's living his best life, and that's all anyone can ask.