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Me Feelings are Too Strong


SummerOnYou

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Before reading I want all of you guys to know that when I crush on someone I crush extremely hard. 2 years ago I had a crush and i was too shy to do anything about it. Last year I added her on snapchat and I tried talking to her. Every question i asked led to a lot of waiting and one worded answers and I eventually got left on opened. After a week or two I moved on. This was around Thanksgiving. About a month later, I was browsing on Instagram and I found the most beautiful girl ever. I recognized her, as she was in my French class. Naturally, I am a shy person so I was too afraid to go up to her. I looked at her a lot and I think I might have seen her staring at me once (or maybe it was my mind just trying to make me feel better). She's a year older than me and really popular and she was a varsity cheerleader. She laughed a lot and I thought it was really cute. I was obsessed I would stalk her Instagram and VSCO. I would listen to all the songs on her Instagram stories and made a seperate playlist for them. Which i know is creepy. Anyways, this year (sophomore year for me junior for her), I decided to not be a wuss and I added her on Snapchat exactly a week ago. For two days, she didn't add me back and I became slightly disappointed. I knew she was on her phone though because she was active on instagram. Two days later on Thursday, she finally added me back and I almost had a heart attack. The next day we didnt have school and I shaved just to snap her a picture of my full face. She responded in 9 minutes. We snapped back and forth a couple more pics. Then i snapped a picture with "Hey". She didn't say anything back just a snap of her face. Then I snapped back and she snapped back with a pic of her with a pen in her mouth and I snapped back the same thing. We kept on snapping all day Friday and I was really happy. It continued into Saturday morning and she would always respond within an hour. At 1 pm I sent her a snap and she left me on opened. Then on Sunday I sent her a snap asking if she wanted to do streaks. She just sent a random snap without her face. Then I snapped back and she left me on opened. Yesterday, I sent her streaks and she didn't open it or send anything back. I know she was active because she was posting on her story and she viewed mine. I feel really sad and i've shed some tears over it. I feel like she's the biggest crush I've ever had and I want her so bad but she's way too out of my league, as she's a year older than me and super popular, while I'm a quiet kid. We don't even have any classes together.

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I would say that you're crushing on people at a relatively normal speed, especially at your age. Tricky part is choosing what to do with those feelings. Namely: Do you try to actually get to know the person, or do you turn social media into a gauge for all that?

 

There are risks and benefits to both. Learn how to approach someone IRL, and feel it out, and you may very quickly discover they're not interested. Ouch. But also? Real information, and you learn that you can live with an ouch or two along the way—an important life skill. And if they are interested? You get to proceed from there, actually getting to know someone, having actual experiences in 3D, with all the social media stuff being a fun subset of that rather than an anxiety-inducing substitution, if that makes sense.

 

As for the way you're going about it? Well, you get some quick jolts of excitement with the snaps and snap backs, but you really have no idea what any of that means or what it may, or may not, amount to. In the process you train yourself to think that "confusion" is something special. What you're calling feelings "for" someone are actually feelings that a mode of communication, rather than a person, are triggering: excitement when someone snaps back, despair when then don't, without ever knowing heads or tails about what's what. I understand that it's a "good" approach if you're petrified of being rejected—except not really, since you end up feeling rejected if someone doesn't want to streak or doesn't snap back in an hour.

 

I don't know about you, but if my heart is going to get hurt a bit I want it to be from an experience with a person, not my phone. Ditto if I'm going to have my heart lifted up to some spectacular clouds.

 

I'd encourage you to challenge yourself a bit to explore connecting the first way, rather than solely through social media. I was your age before the internet, but I recall the numerous crushes well and can tell you the feeling doesn't change much in your 20s, yours 30s, and beyond. Some I built up the courage to talk to back in high school, for real. Others I did the old school version of what you're doing, kind of lurking at the periphery, finding passive ways to make my presence known, then looking for signs. Those ones generally went nowhere—or went with the dudes with more moxie—save for getting me all sorts of spun around in my head with nothing to show for it. The others? Some of those became first kisses, first girlfriends, to say nothing of real friends.

 

Not all, of course, and some of those experiences hurt me. But they were real, and in learning that I could survive some hurt I actually became less shy, more confident. I was your age about 25 years ago, which I realize sounds like an eternity. But, truth be told, the way I learned to go about things back then still informs the way I go about them now. Something to think about.

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Well the other issue is that sometimes when we add people on social media, they can add us back "just because". It doesn't mean they are actually interested in us, no offence. I mean she could be interested but also you basically don't know each other and never talked in real life. Just sending pictures of your face and "Hey" is not even a conversation. At the very least you could start actually chatting to her and get to know her. Also it's understandable that if she's pretty, you are attracted to her, but you may have no real connection in nothing in common. I think it's important to recognise that your crush is just fantasy at this point. And look I know we've all done it but I'm not sure if it's healthy to extensively stalk someone you barely know on social media and obsess about them.

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Are"Snipping, snapping and streaks" a new language, or am I sadly out of the loop?

 

Though I've never used SnapChat, from what I understand a "streak" is when you direct message back and forth regularly for a few days. Snap keep track of this, the way Instagram keeps track of how many likes you receive, and so for many people keeping a "streak" going is a kind of reward, or game, or gauge of closeness, or something.

 

Perhaps the easiest way to think of it is just texting a lot but in a way where the platform actively encourages you to do so, a bit like the sounds and lights on a slot machine. So just as teens will post things primarily to rack up "likes," rather than to document something they sincerely like, they will go to efforts to keep a streak going just for the sake of having a long streak.

 

And much like a slot machine, it's all fine and fun—until it's not.

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Though I've never used SnapChat, from what I understand a "streak" is when you direct message back and forth regularly for a few days. Snap keep track of this, the way Instagram keeps track of how many likes you receive, and so for many people keeping a "streak" going is a kind of reward, or game, or gauge of closeness, or something.

 

Perhaps the easiest way to think of it is just texting a lot but in a way where the platform actively encourages you to do so, a bit like the sounds and lights on a slot machine. So just as teens will post things primarily to rack up "likes," rather than to document something they sincerely like, they will go to efforts to keep a streak going just for the sake of having a long streak.

 

And much like a slot machine, it's all fine and fun—until it's not.

 

I'm 34 so I think I'm not as into social media as the teenagers these days but I just think that sending "snaps" is not that personal compared to texting or chatting online (Facebook messenger, etc.) At least with that communication you are actually having conversations. I know "a picture speaks a thousand words" but if you're just sending selfies then what are you really learning about that person? At least if you sent pictures of things you like or how your day is going, it would be more personal. I think too much value is also placed on social media in the sense that people think that just because someone added them on social media, they must be interested in them. I think these days we just do that, we just add people and it doesn't always mean anything.

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I'm 34 so I think I'm not as into social media as the teenagers these days but I just think that sending "snaps" is not that personal compared to texting or chatting online (Facebook messenger, etc.) At least with that communication you are actually having conversations. I know "a picture speaks a thousand words" but if you're just sending selfies then what are you really learning about that person? At least if you sent pictures of things you like or how your day is going, it would be more personal. I think too much value is also placed on social media in the sense that people think that just because someone added them on social media, they must be interested in them. I think these days we just do that, we just add people and it doesn't always mean anything.

 

Totally agree. I'm about to turn 40, and maybe it's the 6 years between you and I that makes me pretty immune to even getting emotionally invested following the deepest of chats over Facebook messenger, etc. At the end of the day I don't think any of that is a substitute for reality, at least not a satisfying one—a lesson that everyone learns (hopefully) on the path toward coming into themselves and the world at large.

 

I think there's a fine place for the selfie volleyball and the streaks to exist as a form of flirtation, even a superficial coat of grease to the rails leading toward genuine connection. Is what it is. Key is to recognize it for what it is. Perhaps moments like OP is going through is part of that process.

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Then don't do it. Why be "creepy"? Redirect your energy and focus on more viable situations and elevated pursuits. Get involved in sports and clubs and groups. Pick up your grades. Try to get into a great college.

 

Practice tuning yourself up to be naturally desirable by having brains, friends, talents, interests and athletics. What are you going to talk to girls about in the future? How you stalked some girl's social media accounts? Make yourself proud of yourself and stop this nonsense.

Which i know is creepy.
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She responded in 9 minutes. At 1 pm I sent her a snap and she left me on opened.

 

Shedding tears over someone you haven't even spoken to in person is very concerning, as well as keeping exact times on how long it takes for her to respond, etc.

 

With your behavior, even if a person isn't sitting right next to you, she will read between the lines and see that you don't have much of a life besides being focused on pursuing your target in romance, and it will freak her out.

 

You won't be ready to date until you do some work on yourself. You can do things to overcome some of your shyness. Practice small talk with cashiers when you purchase something. Just getting used to conversing with people you're not attracted to will get you more comfortable in that area. Take up a new hobby you can be passionate about, so that the sole source of your social life won't be a girlfriend. You might make new friends, gain a support system, and you might even find a potential girlfriend with the new hobby.

 

You're going to have to learn not to go overboard when interested in a girl. Take it as a one-day-at-a-time, wait and see attitude. You're learning about each other, having fun in the moment, without projecting to the future. And while dating, also make time for hobbies, friends, and solo time. You don't want to smother a girl and send her running, wild-eyed, to the nearest exit.

 

If you can't do this on your own, seek therapy to help you learn proper social skills and to keep your emotions on a more even keel. Take care.

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