I Screamed and Ran Away

 Um, but moving on 🙂 — I’m sorry I ramble — I sort of have another question to ask you. I suppose you can say I don’t have a mom, my parents are divorced and I haven’t talked to her since I was nine?, and although I do have a bigger sister I’d just sort of feel embarrassed asking her this kind of stuff, so here goes: When will I know if boys like me, like, you know, that? I mean, is there a way to tell? 

 I’m fourteen now, and there are two boys in particular I’d like to know about. The first is a boy at church; he’s my age, and we’re in the same group thing that we attend during the regular service for all the 6-8 graders. I’ve never talked to him directly before, but (according to my brothers) he used to stare at me all the time, and sometimes I even caught him doing it. He just stopped last Sunday actually—or, well, I didn’t notice him doing it at all then. And like, once when I wasn’t there, when my little brother went instead of me and the youth pastor introduced him as my little brother, he (the guy I’m talking about) apparently was the first one to say “Yeah, I know her”, which makes me kind of embarrassed and curious, because I don’t think I’ve ever even said hi to him. Now I’m just wondering, does he like, did he like me? I’m so confused. Another reason why this sucks too is because up to last week, I’ve been denying all hints of having a crush on him, because I didn’t, but now I think I sort of might… 

 The other boy I think it is safe to say I am over, but I would still like some words of wisdom about him. You see, he’s two years older than me, and two years ago we used to go to the same chess club, the one my brother used to run. Everyone always teased me about having a crush on him, and then one day at a community celebration, when he called out hi to me, some thing or another overcame me and I screamed, knelt, and ran when I saw him (because I had a crush on him) and then didn’t see him ever since….last month. When I found out he works now at the city Superstore. It was such a shock when I saw him, because I was so embarrassed from two years ago, and anyways, what I’m confused about is when he saw me—I was with my younger brother and my older brother and his girlfriend—he didn’t say hi to me, or even look at me. He had a quick conversation with my brothers, but he didn’t even look at me! And then, just two weeks ago, I was there again, with a different brother and my same younger brother. This time, HE came over to US, while we were at the check-out stand, and he looked right at me, except I averted my gaze. And he said hi to my brothers and shook their hands, but I clammed up and hid behind my brothers and didn’t even acknowledge him, and now I can’t help wondering, did he come over to talk to us (to me)? Or, like, what…? 

 Yikes. I’m a bit of a motormouth I’m afraid. 🙁 I’m truly apologetic about that. I know you’re not a mind reader, Mrs. Naylor, but if you can, it’d be awesome if you helped me out. Even if you can’t, I’m still just thank you so much. 

Any day now I expect to get a letter from a guy saying, “There’s this girl who used to be in the same chess club with me, and I can’t figure her out. I’ve heard that she had a crush on me, but one time I called out “Hi” to her and she screamed, knelt down, and then away.  That sort of shook me up, so the next  time I saw her with her brothers, I went over to talk to them and she hid behind her brothers the whole time.  Mrs. Naylor, do you think she’s OK?  Is it safe to try talking to her again?”

I get the feeling sometimes that unless a guy makes an announcement in front of all his friends, after a trumpet fan fare, that he likes a girl, she doesn’t want to say or do anything to encourage him, even though she’s crushing on him.  I think you need some down time just accepting guys as friends, no matter how much you like them, and getting far more comfortable with them than you are now, so that the feelings between you can grow.  There is no thermometer you can stick in his mouth that will tell you his romantic temperature.