I'm a high school senior but have never had a boyfriend

[musicale]

I've had plenty of crushes but no one ever returns the interest. If I like a guy I will ask him questions, get to know him, try to make him laugh. It can feel like a lot of work because I get pretty shy when I have a crush. After the initial shyness we usually become those friends who talk to each other on a daily basis but aren't really that close. That's what has happened with the guy I like right now. I can tell he enjoys talking to me, just not more so than anyone else. He never goes out of his way to talk to me. I have noticed he tends to make more eye contact with me when he is talking to multiple people, but I also have this sneaking suspicion he likes this other girl. People always say that if a guy likes you then you'll know it. If you're left wondering then he probably doesn't.

I have been pursuing crushes for the last three years, but they have never gone anywhere because the guy just doesn't seem interested. I don't know, is this normal?? Does it seem like I could be doing something wrong??. People often tell me I am "cute", but I wouldn't say I'm incredibly attractive. Maybe guys at this age are only interested in hot girls? Or maybe I need to take more initiative and invite him to do something together? He's rather outgoing though while I am the shy one, so I feel like if he liked me then he would make the first move. Ahh I don't know, when it comes to dating I have no idea what I'm doing

[luckiicloverxx]

Hey there Emma!

I 100% understand where you're coming from. I've felt the same way before, and sometimes even still do! All I can say is that it honestly doesn't matter as much as you think it does now. I'm a senior too, and have had two relationships in the past three years. I entered them both because I liked the two individuals, but also because it just felt like something I should do in high school, if you know what I mean. You seem to feel this way, wondering why your crushes don't become real relationships, and I think that society and pop culture has just given us the impression that we're supposed to have some sort of romantic experience before we even go to university! And to be honest, if I could go back in time, I would have chosen not to enter those relationships and would have decided to spend more time on my friends instead! Trying to balance school and a relationship is often hard enough, but balancing them with friends is even tougher, and no matter how you organise it, you'll end up sacrificing something. High school relationships often don't last, not because people don't really like/love each other, but because we don't know enough about the world yet to decide on what we want. And is there much point in investing so much of your precious teenage life (the rare, scarce amount of time you have before adulthood pushes immense amounts of responsibility onto you) onto a relationship that most likely won't work out?

This is not to say at all that I am discouraging you from relationships completely. I'm just saying that if you feel that having a boyfriend is something you should have rather than something you want, you don't need a relationship in your life. Lots of people don't have a boyfriend until they're in their twenties, so what you're experiencing is definitely completely normal!

Hope this helped (sorry that it came off a little rambly), and feel free to PM me if you ever need to talk!

Kyra

[musicale]

Thank you for another perspective! I guess I never considered just how much time a relationship would actually take up, and it's interesting to here that you would have rather spent the time you were in a relationship with your friends instead. I guess I should appreciate what I have.

Emma

[Always *]

I know tons of people who made it into their 20's without having a relationship and it often wasn't because they didn't want it. I'm 25 and I speak to other humans. So I'd know that this happens. One of those people are my boyfriend and my best friend.

What I see a lot is people who think their undesirable because of their perceived "problem" in never having had a relationship before. That's obviously bad if it prevents you from putting yourself out there because otherwise you'll end up making your undesirability a "thing" which looks a lot like a monster and causes anxiety and depression. Really, its dear holding you back and ybot how desirable you are. I know you can contradict that; right now you're trying and it's not working and that's ok too. Like you might just be missing the guys who like you cause y'all don't match up. Like if I had tried dating jocks in high school I'd never have dated anyone cause they weren't my type at all even though I thought they were hot. Alas, I was a broken mess in high school and the guys who went for me (my being a broken mess, geek, smart etc) were not guys who were good for me in the long run but whatever. Sometimes, for whatever reason dating just doesn't come together in high school and it literally doesn't matter. Sometimes it sucks.

If you want to be proactive, just change up your game and date around. You can do little things like signing up for OkCupid (but seriously please be 18 first cause otherwise yikes! Normally I don't give a fuck about people lying on the internet because like I can't stop you or anyone else from doing so but lying about being a child and saying you're 18+ could get an adult into a lot of legal trouble and getting a boyfriend isn't worth ruining someone's life. Ideally just graduate high school first too even if you're 18). Ok side tangent over. Where I was going was saying that if you do small things like asking someone out for dinner or whatever it can help. You can start with online things to meet new people if you don't currently know any one that you want to spend time getting to know. You don't have to have any expectations either; you can just start with exploring relationships and seeing where it goes. Literally just go for dinner with someone with the intentions of seeing if it could be more by don't be like "ahmagawsh I luuuurve him!" Because maybe you'll go for dinner and be like meh and you can never do it again. You can just go for dinner or lunch with a current friend or something even. I did that tons. It was never a. If deal. I never dated any of them but it never mattered later because it wasn't like we'd laid our hearts on a table only to be rejected; it was literally just a lunch and it's not something we needed to tie tons of meaning to. Most of us I feel like get so much meaning tied into those tings and talk them selves out of trying.

It'll work out though. You're not even 19. Hell your definitely not even 20. I'm not worried about you. You won't need to start your spinster cat collection for st least 20 years.

[Skyline]

Hey there, it seems to me like the main problem is that you're not making a move... if you always assume that your crush doesn't like you, you're already setting yourself up for "failure" (although it's not really failure, I can't find the right word). I don't really know what else to say, other than IT'S TOTALLY FINE to have never dated anyone as a senior. i know plenty of people who haven't been in a relationship, so there's no shame in it.