Auntie SparkNotes: Did He Ever Like Me? Is It Too Late?!

Dear Auntie,

I need help with this guy I like. You see, there’s this guy at my school that I like. He is a year older than me. Last year, when I was just a freshman, he was in a few of my classes. In the beginning of the year he would make all these kissy faces at me and mouth “I love you” to me, but I thought nothing of it at first. Things like this don’t happen to me very often and I thought he was just trying to be funny. We started talking and we were kinda friends, but I only thought of him that way. Towards the end of the first semester he got kinda cold towards me and I didn’t know why. He started hanging out with this senior, and she’s kind of a s*ut. I felt myself getting jealous, but I shoved my feelings down because me being me would not be able to get a boyfriend especially one as popular as him.

Second semester comes and I think I’m over him but then weird things start happening. He starts staring at me A LOT. He knows I like the band Green Day and one day he wore a Green Day shirt and made sure I saw it. He never told me he liked them as well so I thought it was weird. I came to the conclusion that he liked me, but I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t sure if I even liked him, but deep down I did. He always tried to show off in front of me by making me laugh. One time he actually took his shirt off in the middle of class while he was sitting next to me. He claimed he was changing out of his costume, but he took his grand old time doing it. I decided that I did like him, but I didn’t say anything to him because I’m too shy and scared.

Now this year is completely different. We don’t have any of the same classes so I don’t see him except for in the hallways and occasionally at lunch. I don’t get any signals that he likes me anymore and he seems very cold towards me. But lately he’s been staring at me again and he talked to me, but just to apologize for hitting me in the head with a basketball. I know I’m crazy about him and really really like him, but I’m not sure if he likes me still or ever did. I’m still way too shy and scared to talk to him, but I want to talk to him so badly. Does he like me? Did he ever? Is it too late? What should I do?

Allow me to answer your questions with a question, Sparkler: Hypothetically speaking, if you still had a chance with this guy, would you actually do something about it?

Because if “I’m too shy and scared to talk to him” is your final word on that front, then it kind of doesn’t matter whether he likes you or not. And the effort it would take to figure it out isn’t even remotely worth it, if all you’ll do with the information is use it to fuel another multi-year marathon of microanalysis coupled with complete and total inaction—which isn’t the greatest use of your time in any event, but especially not when you don’t even seem to be enjoying it. This does-he-or-doesn’t-he-like-me game can be fun, but only as long as it’s fun, you know?

And then there’s this little roadblock: Auntie SparkNotes doesn’t actually know how this guy feels or felt about you, because I’m not a witch. (Or, okay: I’m not a very good witch.) But if he was interested in you—and he certainly may have been, at least at some point—he would have also probably been pretty discouraged and/or turned off by your evident ambivalence toward him. Look at the story you tell in your letter, and imagine experiencing it from the perspective of someone who did, in fact, like you. It would have been super frustrating!

Almost as frustrating as, say, pining desperately away for a person who you can’t bring yourself to talk to.

So, what do you do? First, you decide what you want more:

A) To preserve the current status quo, where you spend endless time dwelling on mysteries like The Potential Secret Meaning of the Green Day T-Shirt, but you also never get anywhere or change anything, ever, or;

B) To solve the damn mystery, and move on—hopefully to a place where you get to enjoy the pleasure of a requited crush, but if not, then at least to somewhere other than the crazy-making limbo where you’ve been dwelling for a year and a half.

And assuming you prefer Option B, then here’s what you do: Gut up, take a deep breath, and say hi-and-how’s-it-going to the guy the next time you see him. (If you prefer Option A, then… well, there’s only one thing left for me to do. [Hurls laptop across the room, launches self into space.])

And I know, I know: You’re shy and scared and putting yourself out there even in this teeny-tiny way is terrifying. But darling, you must realize: The terror comes from not having done it. The scary part isn’t being rejected; it’s not knowing if you will be. So if you take this one, single, necessary step toward finding out if this guy is receptive to your interest, then there’s no more not knowing, and no more being scared. Whatever is going to happen will have happened. And whatever that happens to be, I promise you, it’ll be better than the status quo.

Got something to say? Tell us in the comments! And to get advice from Auntie, email her at advice@sparknotes.com.
Want more info about how this column works? Check out the Auntie SparkNotes FAQ.