@JoshuaDolin
“I saw him again today!” I said to Maggie. “I was on the last part of my run and he was biking to class. We made eye contact as we passed. I flipped my hair and put forth more effort in those 30 seconds of my run than the previous hour! If only he knew that he was my secret lover.”
Do you have a secret lover? They are those people you see every time that you are walking to a class or working out in the gym. They are attractive, exciting and hopefully single. You stare at them, spend an embarrassingly long amount of time thinking about what to say to them, and daydream about dating them. They are your lover, they just don’t know it yet.
I may be single, but I have more secret lovers than I can keep track of. Here are some of my most recent:
French model from Zimmerman
Guy who works at McAlister’s
Guy who throws a Frisbee in Smith Plaza
The computer lab IT guy in C&J and Dane Smith
The gay guy at Lowe’s on Paseo
Hot co-worker at the Daily Lobo
And the morning anchor of Channel 13
They are secret lovers because they don’t know it, but I see them frequently and have crushes on all of them. I stare at them from across the library, I look forward to passing them on my way to class and I hope they are working if I go to their work location.
“I go to McAlister’s so much that I am going to get diabetes from all of this sweet tea! Why can’t he just notice me already?” I asked Ashley.
“The man of my dreams doesn’t notice me either,” she said. “He is tall, has a good sense of style, and wears a San Francisco Giants hat. We used to pass each other all the time, but I never knew what to say and I haven’t seen him in a long time.”
Do you have someone that you see frequently on campus that catches your eye? Maybe you put on your favorite outfit because they are in class with you that day, or you pretend to be on your phone when you pass him because you want to look busy.
“Then there is this other guy,” Ashley said. “He is blonde and always wears Lobo gear. We stare at each other as we pass everyday, but never say anything. Sometimes I smile, but that’s it. But I know he is interested because he always stares back at me!”
Ashley even goes to the men’s soccer games because of her secret lover. But honestly, who doesn’t have a secret lover on the soccer team?
“I go to the games to see the hot blonde guy run around the field with his sculpted body,” she said. “Because that isn’t creepy or anything.”
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Maybe it is creepy to make up nicknames, purposely plan schedules to ‘run into’ our crushes, or stare at them, but if we all do it, why does no one make the first move?
I decided that I would make the first move with my lover from McAlister’s. I had it all planned out in my head. I would go order some food and delicious tea, and then flirt with him and give him my number if it went well. The only problem was that he no longer works there, so like Ashley, I will not see my secret lover ever again.
“We all need to nut up when the opportunity is there,” Maggie said. “Because now it is gone and you should have went for it earlier.”
Who knows if he felt the same about me, but I will never know now.
“My whole life is a secret crush.” Aurora said. “There was this one guy who was one of the hottest guys I have ever seen and he liked Disney. He was perfect! But after a few weeks of seeing him around campus I never saw him again.”
Aurora moved on to another secret crush, because we all do. Even people who are in relationships, like Alice, have secret crushes.
“I have a crush on Captain Hook from Once Upon a Time,” Alice told me. “Because I don’t really get out enough to see people to have crushes on. Plus I think that if you are in a relationship with someone you should feel strongly enough for them that you wouldn’t even notice other people.”
And Collette has a secret crush that is even closer to her. “I have a crush on this history major in one of my classes,” she said. “I was so attracted to him because he did better than me on the tests in our class. Then I found out he had a girlfriend and I learned to live with it.”
But we can’t stop ourselves from having crushes. “We have worked together in class and we send Snapchats to each other,” Collette said. “I still have a crush on him, but I would never tell him because it would risk our friendship and it isn’t worth that. I like being around him too much.”
So who is your secret lover? Do you have a list of them, like me, or do you secretly like one of the people in your classes, like Collette?
“At this point I don’t even care if they see me staring,” I told Ashley as her and I stood outside Mitchell Hall looking for hot men. “I am desperate and I don’t need to waste time. They just need to know that I am interested! I’m putting myself out there!”
Secret crushes are unavoidable. You see them, you smile at them and you secretly wish you were dating them. But what if they felt the same way? Or what if you are someone else’s secret lover? How will we ever know? How do we get their attention?
Should we do the “Bend and Snap” at the Duck Pond? Or should we accidently bump into them? Maybe it’s possible to make a secret lover, an actual lover. But we would have to stop texting our friends as soon as we see that guy, and instead go talk to that guy. Is it possible to talk to one of our secret crushes and make the first move, or are we always going to be #SecretLovers?
Current Relationship Statuses:
Josh: Planning what to say to the computer lab IT guy
Ashley: Secretly crushing on the soccer team (who isn’t?)
Alice: Crushing on her boyfriend, Bill
Collette: Secretly crushing on her classmate
Aurora: Secretly crushing on everyone
Maggie: Open with her love for boxed wine
#RelationshipStatus
#SecretLover
