Everything you go through when you can’t talk to boys you like

Unless it’s about Harry Potter, but that seems to be more damaging than just not talking

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I have a serious problem when it comes to talking to boys I like. Under normal circumstances I consider myself to be a fairly eloquent individual, one who can talk her way out of almost any given situation. But when it comes to talking to a boy I think is even remotely attractive? I spew more nonsense than Kanye West on Ellen.

Now this isn’t a problem a have with all guys. I actually (and surprisingly) have a lot of guy friends, but that’s just it: I have a lot of guy friends. Now don’t get me wrong, nine times out of 10 a platonic relationship is much more desirable than anything romantic, but that one time out of 10 I’d really like to have the capacity to have a conversation with one that doesn’t see me as a vagina-bearing boy.

As a self-proclaimed expert on failing at dating, I’ve compiled this list of all the things you go through if you can’t talk to boys, to make all of us unfortunate individuals hopefully feel a little less pathetic and alone.

A fairly standard reaction to me saying anything, ever

When you become interested in someone you can’t talk to them anymore

When you’re friends with a boy, you have absolutely no problem being around them. You’re completely yourself: joking, teasing, fun, cool, whatever. But as soon as you “catch the feels,” which is bound to happen at least once during the beginning stages of a friendship, you suddenly shut down. This tends to cause a lot of awkward encounters in which your friend doesn’t understand why you’re suddenly “acting so weird” and starts to avoid you like the plague due to said awkwardness.

My advice? Figure out whether these feelings are real (and I mean really real, like you’d-date-them-real) and then either tell them and deal with the aftermath, or shut them down as fast as possible, if only so you can stop responding to their attempts at conversation with a vacant expression and (sometimes) small amounts of drool.

When someone tells you they like you, you don’t know what to say

Hearing that anyone likes you as more than a friend is just so unexpected that you never know what to say in response, especially if this is someone you like back, because aforementioned awkwardness makes the reciprocation of your feelings almost impossible to fathom. As a result, you either freeze up, start babbling incoherently, or, in my case, start laughing. Which, of course, almost always leads to said boy realizing that he does not, in fact, like you, resulting in him power walking away, blocking your number, dying his hair, and moving to a completely different postal code in an effort to never speak to you again (also just me? Great).

“So Rheagan, are you dating this boy?” CLEARLY NOT because he’s not running in terror

If you do end up having a conversation with them, it’s usually at an inopportune time

Luck never seems to shine on you, does it? When, by some incredible miracle, you get put in a situation where the two of you actually have the chance to start talking, something always goes wrong. Maybe you’re sick and have lost your voice, maybe you’re really tired because it’s midterm season and you’ve been studying for days, maybe you just didn’t have the energy to put on a decent outfit this morning: whatever the case, something always happens to make this encounter much more short-lived (and uncomfortable) than it should have been, leaving you more certain than ever of your future as Bridget Jones reincarnate.

Prime example of both an inopportune time, as well as a typical outfit on a day when I see literally everyone that matters

In the rare event it’s not an inopportune time, you make a fool of yourself

When the (even rarer) times arise where you get to talk to them at a convenient opportunity – maybe you put a lot of effort into your makeup that day, or you recently just completed a juice cleanse and are “totally glowing” (lies: you don’t look “glowing,” you just look starved) – you’re so enthusiastic about making up for all your previous embarrassment that you get stressed out and make a fool of yourself. Again.

I once told a boy, to his face, that I had “nothing to say to him” because my mind had gone completely blank and I panicked. I’ve never wanted to sink into the ground more in my life, and we were at a tailgate and he wasn’t drunk so he definitely remembers this encounter. Hopefully he forgot the time I talked about how I “have an interactive Harry Potter wand so I can cast real spells.”

If everyone loved Harry Potter my life would be perfect

Even when you don’t talk you still make a fool of yourself

You just can never win: even in situations where you don’t even need to say anything, you still manage to ruin things without uttering a word. Whether you trip and fall down (or up) a flight of stairs, knock a pile of papers off your teacher’s desk in class, or get caught walking past him (or her) multiple times in an attempt to make them notice you (yes, this has happened to me, and yes, it is MORTIFYING), you still wind up one step closer to dying alone with your cat.

Wow I have absolutely no game.