A few years ago I wrote a fictional story about a subject I’m all up about… confusion. For all non-Spanish speakers, I’ll give you a small rundown of it. The story is about a teenage girl whose life is turned upside down by her ‘adult’ (20 something year old) boyfriend. He becomes possessive and obsessive, and drags her out of her friends, family, and life she knows of. To avoid making this narrative any longer, at the end, boyfriend dumps the girl for no reason and she spends all summer wondering what she did wrong.

As summer goes by and classes resume, she feels she’s still not over her now ex-boyfriend, but she finds out he impregnated a girl and moved to another town. The catch of the story is that, girl cries for days and days, and she doesn’t even know if she’s crying because she feels sorry for him, or because she wishes deeply she could be that pregnant girl, only to be near him. That’s what I’m about to write today, a very subject I think I know.

What do you think is worse when you’re head over hills over this girl who is not yours to take? Maybe an ex- girlfriend you lost at one point in time? Is it worse to just exile yourself and wonder what is she doing? Is she thinking about you? Where is she going everyday? Or just be a man and try handle the friend zone where every word, every look, everything she does is a low blow to the heart?

I’ve had that happen to me in the past, and I’m sure some or all of you could agree with this; you push the friend zone believing it won’t get the best of you, thinking since you’re in control of your feelings, this won’t influence you in any way. So when you’re in, you feel you’re back into her circle of trust and think you have a chance again since you once had reciprocated feelings, a history… heck, you know what her favorite meal is. You believe that, that flirty smile she does from time to time, is meant for you and no one else. Wrong! That’s probably how she is. Maybe that’s the reason you fell in love with her in the first place.

So your friends tell you to avoid her and stop thinking about her, she’s moved on and so should you. How can you avoid a person you spent part of your life with? At this point your routine changes to a 180° degrees. Now coming home from work or school, you don’t call her to see how her day was, instead you watch TV or play xBox, or come up with creative ways to distract yourself until the clock hits 9 or 10pm. Now you think it’s a normal time to be able to go to bed and you try to imagine an inventive way to handle this situation tomorrow.

Now the weekend comes… hey, you already had plans with your group of friends to go to this bar on Saturday. Now you can’t go, and you know why?; that means that you’ll have to see her… as a friend. You like her so much you promised you’d try. So you decide to go but you comb your hair differently, maybe try unique clothes so she notices you. You arrive fashionably late trying to make her deem you don’t care about time, or her, or fun. You’re you and you’re single again and you can do whatever you want. Does that work? No. She has a new boyfriend and she decides to bring him along. Whether she’s in love with him or not (Deep inside you think she’s not), it doesn’t matter, she is with someone who’s not you.

Of course boyfriend had to be a nice guy, and that only makes it worse. You try and find a reason to hate him but you can’t, except the fact the he has the girl and you don’t. Now you have to play the bigger man and pretend you don’t care. Be the boyfriend’s new friend. Be happy, ignore her, she’s just another girl in the bar.

So weeks go by and you’re still in the same situation. You still have strong feelings as you try to forget her but you decide that, as long as she’s happy, that’s what matters to you. It kills you to see her, but really you make up a way to make yourself believe it would feel worse if you avoid her. You make yourself believe that this way is better for you. Of course you don’t tell your friends about your theory, they’ll just think you’re insane.

At the end of it all you accept that your feelings are true and that you’re not in control. You just hide those feelings and hope deep inside that someday this one that got away or someone like her, will realize what you’re willing to do for the one you love.