Auntie SparkNotes: I Can’t Stop Pining for the Perfect Girl

Dear Auntie SparkNotes,

I’m a 16-year-old cishet guy in my junior year considering for the first time in my life actually asking someone out to Homecoming. I’ve never had a real girlfriend in my life, but I’ve gotten on a… very close level to some before. I’m apparently a very likable person and I have a lot of friends, both online and in real life, that I’ve accumulated after going through four different high schools and two different towns. I’ve been told that others who don’t know me have apparently referred to me as “that hot guy,” and I often get told indirectly about people who are interested about me and yet I never do anything about it.

I’ve only been genuinely attracted to and interested in two people in my life so far. My first one, “O” was at my first high school that I went to, in my first town. I know “love at first sight” can be argued for and against, but we had similar interests, and eventually we got close enough on an individual level that I was able to finally admit to her that I liked her. Even though she admitted to miraculously having the same feelings as I did, (even on the first day!) as luck would have it, she told me that her old boyfriend has just asked her out again the day before, and she had said yes. It’s been a little less than two years now, and they’re still together.

We still remained friends and, even after all this time I still have been idiotically attached to her. She still tells me about her feelings for me and I do the same for her, sometimes late into the night. I don’t know if it’s just because I never felt the same attraction for anyone else or if I wasn’t giving anyone else a chance in my mind—it seems obvious that if she liked me more than her significant other she would have made the decision—but since I moved to my new town it felt like I was cheated out of a relationship with her.

She tells me about how her significant other is abusive at times and we’ve rarely ever fought about anything ourselves, so I think a part of me is thinking is that “maybe if you keep trying you can show her that you can love each other regardless of distance,” or “she likes me but just not as much as him, but that’s just because we can’t see each other as much and because her boyfriend keeps trying to cut contact between us.” Another part of me feels like she just doesn’t like me anymore and has been lying for a while now, or just wants me when her boyfriend isn’t enough.

Then a couple months ago, another girl came into my life the same way O did. I’ll call her M. “Love at first sight” ? Check. Sitting at another table? Check. Only in one of my classes? Check. One of her friends struck up a conversation with me, and soon we were sitting together at lunch.

And now we’ve caught up to the present.

Homecoming is in just a couple weeks. I have a huge decision to make.

Do I ask out M to Homecoming, or do I keep pursuing O?

The few other people I’ve talked with about it have told me just to go for it. One person told me it would make O jealous, giving me a greater chance with her, but using a person like that is NOT something I’m comfortable with anyway. I tried talking to O herself about it, and she did end up jealous. We didn’t exactly get to finish the conversation because she “fell asleep” but from what I got she’s jealous she might not be the center of my attention anymore. O is still who I feel like I love, but maybe I just haven’t known M long enough to know I love her. Some people even say their faces look similar and that scares me so much because every time I look into M’s eyes, am I just going to see O?

Is the only reason I’m interested in M because she somewhat resembles O and the way I met O? Am I an a**hole for still staying so in love with someone in a relationship already? Am I being an entitled prick by not even giving all the others who had crushes on me any chance because I’m so caught up trying to get the perfect person?

Um. Tell me, Sparkler: by “the perfect person,” do you mean the manipulative, fickle, selfish girl who’s been treating your heart like a favorite plaything for the past two years?

… Yeah, yeah. I know that’s who you meant. And that, right there, is your problem. All your self-doubt, all your confusion, all your pining and hoping and what-if-ing and inability to move on, comes down to this unavoidable and vitally-important fact, which I am going to put in ALL CAPS and also italics because I cannot emphasize it enough.

YOU ARE BEING SCREWED WITH.

And of course, you kinda know that already. You bumped right up against it about halfway through your very long letter, when you said, “Another part of me feels like she just doesn’t like me anymore and has been lying for a while now, or just wants me when her boyfriend isn’t enough.” If this advice column were a game show, that line would be where the board lights up and goes DING DING DING and you win all of the prizes for knowing what’s going on. (Except on this game show, the “prizes” are a week’s vacation to the Depths of Despair, a sucker punch to the feelings, and a lingering sense of disgust at how thoroughly you’ve been used.) This girl has spent an ungodly long time dangling you from a little string that she yanks on every time she wants to feel wanted—all while reaping the benefits of her relationship with her actual long-term boyfriend. You’re right: if she loved you, she would be with you. But more importantly, if she liked and respected you the way a decent friend should, she would not be a) texting you about her feelings into the wee hours of the night for two damn years while simultaneously dating someone else, and then b) punishing you when you got understandably weary of this totally unsatisfying setup and finally developed an interest in someone else.

In other words, sweet pea, there is indeed someone behaving like an entitled wanker in this scenario… but it isn’t you.

Meanwhile, I suspect this column is posting too late to be useful vis-a-vis your question about whom to ask to homecoming—but that question is also tangential to the actual problem at hand. This isn’t a story about the perfect dreamgirl who ruined you for all future relationships; it’s a story about an insincere, needy, self-interested she-beast who has spent literal years using you as her own personal Male Attention Dispenser.

And whatever you decide to do about your crush on this other person (who, for the record, you really shouldn’t date until and unless you find yourself liking and enjoying her on her own merits and without your original crush lurking as a point of constant comparison in the background), your relationship with that girl really needs to change. It’s not good for you. (And not for nothing, it’s also not particularly fair to her poor sap of a boyfriend, whose desire to limit her contact with you is hardly a mystery under the circumstances.) You’re already halfway to seeing your longtime crush for who she truly is—and she has recently showed you quite unequivocally how little she respects or cares for you as a person. Please take this opportunity to get the rest of the way to recognizing how poorly you’ve been treated, to be as sad as you need to about what a disappointment this girl turned out to be, and to then move on to a future in which better, happier, healthier, and more rewarding relationships await you.

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