Dealing with crush dating someone?

October 25, 2019 10:22 AM

I have a crush on a friend I talk to a lot who has recently started dating someone. Despite the fact that I categorically will not date my friend for various reasons, and do not even really want to, I am still upset. How do I deal with my feelings? Note: I am looking for a therapist.
posted by anonymous to Human Relations (5 answers total)

This is what I call a malignant crush and the good news is that it can be killed by starving it of oxygen. When those thoughts come up just drop them. Don't push them down or suppress them, just drop them & think about something else. Think about how this person isn't right for you and how you will work on finding someone who is right for you. Your brain thinks it has a problem (Intimacy is good! Loneliness is bad) and it has identified your friend as the target for solving the problem. As you know, this is incorrect, so you have to refrain yourself to focus on the right target.
posted by bleep at 10:42 AM on October 25, 2019 [6 favorites]

Gnash your teeth. Write poetry. Make a voodoo doll of their date and stick pins in it. Scream into your pillow. Do whatever it takes to get to to the next moment, and then the next, until the moment comes when you're sick of the pins and your teeth hurt and you start feeling like poetry is really stupid, words are stupid, feelings are stupid, you're DONE with this stupid crap.

Seize that moment to start working on a new obsession. (Or start working on building a new obsession.) Did some cartoon on Instagram really tickle your fancy the other day? Hey, let's look up the artist and click through their entire archive. While flipping through, you find the next new OOH SHINY, and follow that rabbit hole all the way down. Suddenly you start getting an itchy finger because you have an idea for a comic. Draw it! Whoops, turns out you suck at drawing. Pull up a how to draw basic stick figures guide and practice. Make a whole page of rough sketches, two pages, ten pages. Then draw your comic. Neat. Share on Instagram and obsessively check it for likes. Text a bunch of your non-crush friends, and tell them to like it, goddammit, are they your friends or not??? And would they like to get dinner tonight? At dinner, talk about the crab you're eating or the new couch you want to buy or the shit you learned today about drawing. Listen to your friend's stories. Get obsessed with fixing their lives. Go home. Read a self-help book about how to fix your friend's problem. Text them about how great this book is and how bad they need it. When they blow you off, get on MeFi and give advice to other strangers who have no choice but to be polite to you and pretend they read your comment and like your advice. Feel kinda powerful and accomplished. For real though. Today was a good day. You didn't waste it thinking about your crush.

Tomorrow, repeat.

Until there comes a day when giving advice to strangers on the internet and reading self help books to fix your friend's problems and getting manic about new hobbies loses its luster and you begin to question the meaning of life. What are you doing? Why are you wasting your time??? You've been neglecting your kitten, your cooking, your exercise regimen, your professional improvement, your money management, or (or perhaps and!) your hair! Jesus Christ. You refocus on you. Start the curly hair regimen again. Peek at your 401K and allocate more money to it. Join a boxing class with your friend. Make your boss agree to pay for you to go to a conference. Get tempted to hook up with a hot person at the conference. Give in to temptation. Realize how much you miss all of that. Come back home and go on Bumble dates. Get together with friends to rant about how horrible dating is. Have a great time, get kinda pleasantly tipsy. Feel very connected and accomplished. You're living a pretty decent life. And you are. This has been a good year. You've not only moved on from your never-gonna-happen crush... you've made real progress towards your own goals in life.

Next year, repeat.
posted by MiraK at 10:57 AM on October 25, 2019 [16 favorites]

Maybe you're upset because they are no longer available, even if it was just a dream or fantasy. Reality takes away from your fantasy and makes it less exciting, or less of a possibility, even if you knew the possibility was low or zero.

Sometimes I fantasize that my crush likes me back. Now that your friend has a lover it can kill the fantasy and that fantasy was a very fun way to distract yourself and now you have to look at reality and reality bites sometimes.

A crush on a friend can be more of a ego bruise because you have an actual relationship with the person. You know one another well and spend time together. You might find your friend wonderful, charming, and sexy and it's a blow when they don't see you in the same way.

Since you were living in a dreamworld, you weren't actually rejected. You are rejecting yourself in your mind. You might actually feel rejected but it's not real and they are just thoughts.

Maybe a way to feel better is to have an attitude of best wishes for your friend. You're okay, they're okay, and you can have your own romantic relationship if you're so inclined. Become aware that it's only your ego feeling bruised. You are lovable and fine and you can't hitch your mood or worthiness on a friend seeing you in a romantic way. Good luck.
posted by loveandhappiness at 11:45 AM on October 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

One of the techniques I learned when I was grappling with obsessive thoughts was to take the obsessive thing I was thinking about (in your case, your crush) and blow it up in my mind to cartoonish proportions. So if you're having crush-like feelings for someone, turn your thoughts to just how shiny, perfect, wonderful, absolutely faultless this person is. Think of them on a white steed, saving the day for a village of people throwing flowers at their feet. Consider they may know every single love language out there, and will whisper sweet nothings to you all the time. Make it just utterly ridiculous, and you can then start laughing at the obsessiveness of it all. Of course nobody's perfect, so making this person absolute perfection can help short-circuit your brain into thinking more objectively about them (this worked for me for things I'd worry over) and then whenever you find your mind wandering into the thought pattern you don't want, you can actively turn it into a fantasy which you control, and can derail.
posted by xingcat at 11:48 AM on October 25, 2019

Here's what helped me get over inappropriate crushes:
- Limit the amount of time you spend with the crush (they might be too busy with shiny! new! person! to hang out anyway)
- Do 30-60 minutes of aerobic exercise every single day (swim, run, walk, bike, etc.). (This is especially helpful if you are sitting around obsessing about your former crush. Go for a walk. You'll feel somewhat better.)
- Distract yourself (MiraK had some great ideas for that)
- Finally, find someone new to crush on. I know, doesn't exactly solve the problem, but it does get your mind off the original crush.
posted by tuesdayschild at 1:33 PM on October 25, 2019 [1 favorite]