I remember asking one of my first friends at my new school senior year who the cute kid was in my first class. He was tall, great hair, and charismatic; the type of guy Taylor Swift writes songs about. Fast forward a year, and I am sitting at my four-hour-away college apartment’s tiny dinner table, preparing for a casual night out with my friends. The night’s group includes the same gorgeous boy from first period sitting directly across from me pouring a drink, except this time around he knows I like him. He hasn’t said anything about it because he doesn’t feel the same, and I don’t say anything about it either because it’s a touchy subject and I really don’t want to risk ruining anybody’s night. My heart is beating itself out of its cage and my palms are sweating enough to leave a mark on the dark furniture. I focus my attention on my drink instead and suddenly the night’s not so bad, I mean at least I still got to hang out with him.

There’s definitely a certain anxiousness that comes along with your feelings not bring reciprocated, and it can weigh you down quite often if you let it. You find yourself questioning your worth, and then there’s just that downright annoying flow of “what if’s” in the back of your head. The real question though, one that I always seem to forget to ask myself is not how many pounds I can lose or how many cute selfies I have to post to finally get him, but what I need change so that I will stop doubting myself over a boy. I believe that the answer to that lies in finding the best me that I could ever possibly be, which will then translate into someone who knows she deserves better than being ignored.

I wish I could have written this article from a hindsight perspective; a new and improved girl looking back on the guy who crushed my heart. But the truth is that I still forget to breathe sometimes when he’s around, and that my heart has some sort of “start racing” trigger for his voice. I think the only real difference now from the beginning of this whole fiasco is that I don’t resent him for not seeing in me everything that I see in him.

I have forgiven him for not liking me, but only because I like me enough now.

I had to discover the hard way that the only working method to finding happiness was to look for it within myself. Nights I used to spend moping around about being alone and watching every single romantic comedy on Netflix turned into extra-long gym runs, wine nights with my girlfriends, and BFF date nights. I managed to find the silver lining within the dark cloud that hovered above me, to start looking for satisfaction in the areas of my life that I was already content with instead of obsessing over something I had no real control over. And I think that was my biggest lesson in the end- that all the songs were right, that you really cannot force someone to want you despite that being the one thing you want the most in the world.

Thank you so much handsome-tall-boy, for being the best thing that has happened to me, for being the life lesson I love to look at, for forcing me to look in the mirror and tell myself that just because you don’t like me, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t.