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To Dragonflymagic, my reply for your advice
Thanks for the advice for my question "Major crush on this girl" , I now feel much more confident with myself. I livestreamed today, she joined, and I didn't turn the camera the other way this time. I think I turned a little red but nothing too major, however once again things were going fine until she joined then I got a little tongue tied and ended up repeating myself over and over again. How can I stop getting tongue-tied when this girl joins?
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Well, you're the first to respond back by posting to where everyone can answer. So if anyone else in curiousity read this and also has advice on how to stop getting tongue tied, please join in. In future, if you wish to post your response only to the advicegiver who originally answered, you have to go to their advice column by clicking 'search for advice columnists, put dragonflymagic and when my page is up, click the button for submitting a question. Now on to your question:
Fear again is behind this and if I didn't say so last time, fear is like a puffer fish, it blows itself up to look so formidible and scary but if any other fish hung around long enough, that fearful looking creature would turn back into its tiny self eventually.
I personally have found fear to be the same thing. I am very familiar with the being tongue tied, or the face of red embarrassment. I didn't learn until leaving HS how to get over a fear of talking to people. But there can be selective fear, when you have no fear of others and can talk just fine and it only crops up because a certain person is important to you. As scary as it may sound, facing ones fear is what you are already doing. The real scary part comes to when you admit that you get nervous when talking to girls. (I wouldn't reveal at this stage that its because you have a crush on her-explanation later) Everytime I admitted my true fear, like of not knowing what to do or feeling that the last thing I said sounded stupid or that I get nervous sometimes when I speak, that's way scarier than just attempting to fake it and muddle through.
However, here's the bright side. It didn't take but seconds if as much as a minute before I could feel the fear leaving the moment I could admit it was there. It's like a bad guy feeling the police just recognized him and they don't want to get cornered by the police, so he runs. Yup, thats what fear did every time I faced it and admitted I knew it was there and what it had done to me. Fear felt cornered and took off running. I felt like it was almost as if I had just waved a magic wand...it was that quick and easy. But not everyone is brave enough to even try and so they suffer. I can't explain how my blushing stopped but I believe that in time, it happened less and less as I grew in self confidence and had no problem admitting any issue. I still do it all the time as an adult. I'll take you back to when I first met my 2nd husband to be, online. We began to chat every night until the weekend when we could meet. Just from how he spoke, I could ascertain he was a very smart man, well educated. I didn't say things like distorted thoughts would not happen, but I handle them differently. If I had focused instead on worrying how uneducated or stupid I might sound to him, I might have clammed up and with my assumptions felt I was too far beneath him and stopped talking to or meeting him.
Instead, I paid a compliment to him and admitted how I felt. I told him he came across as so well educated and smart, smarter than I was, having only graduated HS, that I felt I was too beneath him, that he would grow bored of me. Remember, I am an adult facing this at close to age 50.
People know what it feels like to bare your secrets, how vulnerable you are and most people will always say something encouraging back. Other than some teens that have not yet learned to have compassion for others, (you ignore them) I have not found anyone yet who has shot me down and ridiculed me after I admitted where I felt I was lacking or an issue I struggled with. And the same happened with my husband. At the time he was surprised that these thoughts had come to me. I remember his words back to me. Wisdom is something that can't be taught with college textbooks. A person can be book smart, pass all the grades and yet lack wisdom. Yet in me, he saw great wisdom and he found that as one of my attractive points.
Wow! Talk about a major self esteem boost. But he was only speaking the truth. And I have never ever felt like that again with anyone else I have been talking to, as if I were too uneducated for them.
Now, I said I'd get back to admitting ones feelings to another person. Whether one says I am crushing on you, I like you or I am in love with you, if the recipient of that info does not feel the same way back, they immediately shut down any further contact because it would feel awkward hanging with or chatting with someone you don't have romantic feelings for but they had it for you. I remember some guys in HS who trailed around after me cus they were crushing on me and I found it so painfully awkward when I knew they wanted to be my boyfriend but I didn't feel that way about them so I did whatever I had to do if I saw them coming, like run the opposite direction. Its a part of human nature. If you had a girl you couldn't stand, who had a crush on you and was forever coming up to talk to you, you would wonder if talking to her would only encourage her that you changed your mind and now like her too and would make the problem worse, right? Or something like that. Its best just to be classmate or close friends for quite a while. If she hangs in there with you, even after you have told her that you get to the point of blanking out and not knowing what to say whenever you believe you are facing a very intelligent, confident person who is so far above you, then she may be a true friend. The next step would be asking if she'd like to sit with you at lunch or at the next assembly if possible or asking her if she'd want to go for a walk or bike ride, something that doesnt sound like dating yet. Then spend more time hanging out as friends. Once you have spent enough contact time, face to face, not just in computer, or texts and phones, then it is reasonable that you and she have had a chance to get to know each other enough to realize whether you are both wanting to be more than friends now. Save this following part somewhere for the future:
When you are ready to admit you like or love someone, I have read several experts on relationships and communication say the same thing, that it is better to lie a bit and say that you are 'starting' to feel attracted romantically toward them. If the other person doesn't feel the same way, they are more likely if they believe this is 'at the beginning' of how you are starting to feel, rather than its been ongoing for a while, to let you know if they don't feel the same so they can nip that in the bud so to speak. If they feel the same, its more likely she'd be happy and excited by her face or she actually says she likes you too.
I still felt that might be a bit awkward so I came up with this alternative. "Hey Susie, we've been doing so well as friends all this time. It makes me wonder how well we'd do together as 'more than friends.' What do you think?
FIrst: you acknowledge the friendship and that it's a good one.
Second: Stating 'it makes you wonder', is the same way of disengaging a persons reaction to shut down or run as the tactic of stating 'you are beginning to feel the feelings like more than friends'.
Third: This sounds like a muse, a 'what if' thought, not as something that actually is true for either of you right now. This is not a time to admit anything yet. A thought not yet put into action is not going to feel scary to her. This works for girls on guys same way.
Four: Mentioning 'more than friends' rather than girlfriend or boyfriend is obvious enough. There are two kinds of basics in a couple relationship, friendship and romance. The only thing that a good friendship lacks is the feeling of romance and all that leads to. Add romance and its couple time with commitments and becoming lovers.
Five: Asking what she thinks is something you will have to be okay with if the answer is not what you want to hear. A person is more likely to be disarmed and actually answer the question as easily and truthfully as if you have asked their opinion on something else. A person can usually tell if there is not any chemistry of the romance kind. They lack feeling that special excitement around you, that tingle when you look at them, etc. you just know, and so would she. If she likes you as even a best friend but doesn't feel the attraction and romantic feelings after a good amount of time as friends, then she can be certain she won't ever feel it. Its there or it isn't. I've met the nicest men with whom I wished the friendship could be more but neither of us ever felt romantic attractions to each other and it had nothing to do with looks, as the same happened with a guy who looked like a male model. No matter how delicious looking, once I got past how good he looked, I had to admit as he did, that we couldn't feel any spark, not in kisses or more.
I am sure you can see how this tactic wouldn't work to just walk up to a girl you've never befriended. There is a reason for that dear. THe most successful relationships between two people, dating or married have both of the following elements: They are each others best friend and they are each others sexual equal- I go straight to that even if I don't know your age because eventually with adults, the romance progresses on to showing each other your love through sex. So its important to become friends first. Romance may follow later, grow into it or it may be present at the time you become friends, but its best to not overlook doing friendship stuff before launching into romance and sex.
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