How to Not Fall in Love

How to Not Fall in Love

Don’t look at him.  Don’t notice the color of his eyes or the way his smile goes all crooked to the right or the really light almost invisible freckles spattered across his nose.  Don’t do this unless you absolutely positively have no other choice.  Make sure to remember this when you’re first introduced.  Looking in between the brows generally does the trick.

Don’t be friends.  Don’t find the things you have in common or count them towards your chances because everyone has things in common and everyone stands a chance if you let them.  It’s not unique.  Be sure to keep this in mind when he asks you what kind of music you like to listen to.  Just because you both like Coldplay doesn’t mean he wants to hold your hand.

Don’t give him your phone number and definitely don’t ask for his.  Don’t let the butterflies come to life in the pit of your stomach the first time his name shows up on the small screen and don’t let your voice crack when you try to nonchalantly answer with the ever popular “Hey what’s up?”.  If it comes to this point make it clear that you are and will always be busy.  The extra minutes you spend with him on the other end are not worth the nickels and dimes you shake from your old piggy bank that you keep stuffed in the back of your closet.

Don’t spend Friday nights on his couch talking about the smallest details of your mundane life when you could be out with friends.  Don’t tell him about how you feel abandoned sometimes because the people who you grow closest to seem to leave for different places and different people and don’t listen to him when he says he won’t leave you.  He doesn’t mean it the way you want him to and you can’t get back the hours of sleep you lose from thinking about those four simple words.

Don’t make him a mixtape that spells out exactly how you feel and that has all the songs from all the memorable moments the two of you have ever shared.  Don’t think he’ll appreciate or understand it or call you at two in the morning to suddenly air out the mutual feelings that have been sitting heavily in the air between you for the past few months.  They don’t exist.  At least not for him.  The only person who’ll actually listen to the mix anyway is you.

Don’t analyze every little movement at the movie theater.  His knee touching yours is not a secret code that means “I want to be with you,” and the way your knuckles graze each other when you both reach for the popcorn is only a testament to the fact that you should have bought your own bag.

Don’t cry into your pillow the night he starts seeing the girl from the math class you are both in.  Don’t imagine what it would be like to be in her shoes.  Don’t think about how their first kiss (on the front steps of the school) should have been yours while you wait impatiently to walk home with him.  Don’t let the chaos ripping through your body start to tear at your chest and don’t let the tears creep up into your eyes when he finally turns and smiles at you with the friendly grin and not the one that she always gets now.  The shuddering breaths that leak from your chest will only make it worse.

Don’t let him in on what’s got you down.  Don’t pour your heart out and let all the desperation and frustration and humiliation trickle into your voice when you tell him that this wasn’t how things were supposed to be.  Don’t let him know that your heart was his from the start because he won’t know what to do with it and he certainly can’t keep it.  Don’t tell him the feelings and thoughts that have been echoing and bouncing around the walls in your head for days weeks months years.  Don’t say it and you won’t feel it.