Auntie SparkNotes: My Friends Keep Shipping My Crush with Someone Else

Dear Auntie,

It’s my freshman year at high school, with only one month left of school. Last semester, this great guy (let’s call him Jake) was my partner in a class project. We had a great time until he switched out to a different class in January. By then I had started to like him as more than a friend.

Jake is naturally sweet and his personality is flirty and humorous. Recently, he started putting his lucky hat on my friend (let’s call her Mary) every day in drama. In my group of friends they started saying that Jake likes her, even though Mary and Jake have been friends for three years. Mary is convinced Jake doesn’t like her, and it saddens me that I never said that I have liked Jake all this time. This week, I twisted my ankle during PE and after drama was over Jake carried me all the way to my next class across campus. The way he asked me if I wanted to have him carry me was, “Don’t you ever want a man to carry you?” and I replied, “Jake, you’re sixteen.” My friends said that Jake was just being nice, and then they made the situation about Mary. If MARY twisted her ankle and if MARY got carried by Jake, my friends would be thinking they are practically a couple. What can I do to fix this situation without losing my friendship with Mary?

This might sound like madness to you, Sparkler, but for starters, you could date the guy.

Because if your primary goal is to get your friends to stop shipping your crush with someone else, showing up holding hands with him would almost certainly accomplish it! Whereas if you not only refuse to pursue your crush, but also refuse to tell anyone that he is your crush, then you just can’t be particularly surprised when your friends don’t respond to your every interaction by going “Whooooo!” in the manner of a Saved by the Bell studio audience that just saw Zack Morris lay a smooch on Kelly Kapowski.

(Side note: If any of you actually understood that reference, please call me on my giant vintage brick of a cellphone so that I can personally congratulate you on your 1990s pop-culture fluency.)

People don’t just ship couples out of thin air, you know? There has to be an inciting event, a spark, a vibe, a thing, that makes it seem like an exciting idea. So if it’s super important to you that your friends be on board with the whole you+Jake equation, and if Jake is behaving in a way, intentionally or not, that provides fodder for them to ship him with someone else (i.e., the hat trick with Mary), then you’ve gotta be willing to give them some equally-compelling material to work with. (And unfortunately, charming and chivalrous though it was, it seems that his carrying you across campus does not qualify.)

But with that said, darling, I must tell you: If you frame this in terms of “Why her, not me?” then not only are you right to anticipate that it’s likely to make things weird with Mary, but it also accomplishes nothing in terms of helping you get what you want, which is (presumably) Jake’s attention. And while you say that Mary isn’t convinced Jake likes her, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want him to—which might have something to do with your friends’ obsession with them as couple material, and which is another argument in favor of not making this about Mary’s desirability/worthiness as compared with yours. (Imagine how hurt you’d be if she did the same to you. Ouch, right?)

Instead, here’s a suggestion: Stop dwelling on who your friends think Jake likes or doesn’t like, and focus your energy on Jake himself, who’s a much better source of information on that front anyway. Flirt with him and see if he flirts back. Chat him up on social media. If you’re feeling really bold, engage him in a conversation about who he’s crushing on and see if he says anything interesting (or gets visibly nervous and sweaty.)

And if he identifies some other girl—or, horror of horrors, tells you he likes Mary—then… well, bummer. I’m sorry. But at least you’ll know, and you’ll be free to focus your romantic energy elsewhere! And you will be very glad in the meantime that you didn’t torpedo any friendships along the way.

Got something to say? Tell us in the comments! And to get advice from Auntie, email her at advice@sparknotes.com.
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