Totally Crushed-Out!

It’s worse than getting caught sniffing your arms in public. In fact, you’d rather get caught smelling your pits than obviously crushing on someone. The milliseconds you endure watching your crush’s face go from blank stare to mild confusion to eventual hey-you-like-me-pala-ha-wink-wink enlightenment stretches out into mock infinity, and everything goes into slo-mo hell.

So how do you untangle yourself from a truly embarrassing moment such as this? We’ve prepared a cheat sheet on how to deal with the most common caught-crushing-on-your-crush moments. Read it, learn it. In fact, as soon as you’ve committed it to memory, tear up this page, chew it, and swallow. Just kidding. Well, sort of.

Crushed-Out Scene 1: Text Text Boom!
You accidentally sent a text about your crush, to your crush.
Although you pride yourself on owning a lightning-fast thumb capable of tapping out 90 words a minute, no amount of hyperbolic speed can undo a fatal SEND–like sending a text about your crush, to your crush.

Let’s say you were about to text your friend the following message: Pao lukd rily kyut n his sk8ter shirt 2day! Kilig!

But because your head was in the clouds while your thumb was putting a windshield wiper to shame with its nonstop autopilot texting, you accidentally sent it to Pao, your hottie crush, instead. What do you do?

First, don’t throw your phone across the room and wail “Noooooooooooooo, gad, noooooooooo!” You will only get your mom mad, and your tushie in trouble. Save the theatrics for the other scenarios, kiddo. What you do instead is take a deep breath, and get your thumb tapping over time. Send the following text to Paolo immediately:

Did u get my txt? ;-) Ds grl sent it 2 me. Uuuuy, I know sum1 hu lyks u!
;-)

Now, you’ve turned the situation into one where you’ve become someone who knows someone who has a crush on Pao. Technically, you aren’t lying: you do know someone who has a crush on him. What he doesn’t know is that that someone is you. And for the sake of pride and sanity, you will never let him think otherwise.

If your crush asks who that mystery crusher is, continue the ploy and say you’ll never tell–you’ve been sworn to secrecy, of course. Just tease him about being the next crush ng bayan, or how he might have a stalker soon, then quickly end the text convo. Whew! Mission accomplished!

Crushed-Out Scene 2: Give Tease A Chance
When the guys tease you in front of him
The thing about boys is, they actually mature at a slower rate than girls. You could both be 20 years old in real time, but in your head, you’re actually a wise woman of 27. Meanwhile, he’s still stuck at 12. That’s why at your age, your best boy buds have no concept of finesse and delicacy—in short, they just can’t keep their mouths shut. They will tease you mercilessly in front of your crush; and they will tease you mercilessly even when your crush is gone. In fact, they have a weird way of just teasing us girls mercilessly, until we get pikon and tell them to rot in hell. To which they respond with—you guessed it—more merciless teasing.

So let’s say you’re hanging out at the tambayan, and your crush Pao walks up to hang with you guys. When you hear your best boy bud Jomike say something really stupid like, “Uy, are you blushing?!” Quickly counter any further teasing with a loud laugh and this exaggerated reply, “Yeah, I’m so kilig right now kasi Pao’s here! Omigod, is he looking at me? Is he looking this way? He is? He is? Omigod, I’m so kilig! Eeeee!”

The idea is to make your crush think that your having a crush on him is just a harmless barkada joke. Do this with your easy and relaxed attitude towards him and your easy acceptance of your guy friends’ jokes and quips. If they continue to make jokes, squelch the urge to pound your history book on their heads. Just laugh, and roll with the punches.

Crushed-Out Scene 3: Eye Taray!
He knows you like him
The worst part of it is he cocks his head in this knowing manner and gives you an all-knowing smile, whenever he sees you in school. Then he elbows his friends and whispers something to them, and they all chuckle knowingly. You wish right then and there that you could fold yourself up like a paper origami, and tuck yourself into a forgotten book. Sheesh.

This is a hard one. Sad to say, if your crush knows you have a crush on him, then probably almost everyone knows you like him. Even your English teacher knows. Even the manang who sells the cheesy mini-pizzas drizzled with tomato ketchup outside your school knows.

So what do you do? It’s time to get in touch with your inner Wicked Witch. When you think about it, no decent guy would even try, much les think, of making a girl feel uncomfortable or ashamed. Are we right, or are we right? If he’s got that Mr. Big Stuff attitude going on, he’s probably a jerk–and thank goodness you only had him for a crush! Try to be comfortable with the idea that a lot of people know who you like; there’s nothing wrong with being attracted to someone, is there? Everyone has crushes, and you shouldn’t feel embarrassed or ashamed about yours. If someone asks you if the rumor’s true, say it was–say you did like him, but have moved on to an even hotter crush.

That being said, it’s time for some astig eye movement. The next time you see him in school–like in a hallway or at the school caf–and he does that smile thingy again, look him squarely in the eye for five excruciatingly long seconds. Don’t smile, don’t frown. Just look at him for five long seconds in the eye. Then let your eyes quickly scan his entire body from head to foot, as if you’re checking out his outfit. Then dismiss him with an Oh-Puhleeze-I-Can’t-Believe-I-Liked-This-Jerk eyeroll, and walk away.

Practice this technique several times in the mirror. Ask a good friend to help you out, just to get you comfortable with the movement. The next time your crush decides to be a dork, he’ll encounter your inner diva, and boy, will he ever be sorry!