It's time to move on.

To everyone who is dealing with an unrequited love or crush for years and years

I found this on the internet. It made a lot of sense. Hopefully it'll make some sense to you too.

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Do you actually want to move on? Because if you do, I have some advice. Read on for that. But I wonder if a lot of you would want or need it....

In a lot of ways a serious and important infatuation can be a beacon of hope, an ever-present reminder of something greater to aspire to achieve. An idol to worship and treat with reverence. After a certain point (a year? less? more?), the person who is the object of your infatuation no longer remains a person, but rather a giant Statue. Imposing, inspiring, and static.

At a certain point you are no longer in love with a person, but with an IDEA of a person.

This distinction is crucial and also scary. Love and belief in ideas shape our world, and some of the best AND worst things ever done were in the name of an idea. Religion, politics, all of that, they're all removed from reality replaced with a larger over-riding IDEA that will never actually be achieved.

Same thing with a love and infatuation. After a certain point, the person you are in love with will never have the ability to match your expectations and imagery of what you build them up to be. Because the person you are in love with is...drumroll...human. They are human with their own qualities and their own faults. Many faults even, but you do not see them because you are not close to them. And faults that you will actually never see because you idealize.

This is not fair to them or you. Long-term unrequited love is like a parasite that sits on your brain. It prevents growth and development in that part of the brain while constantly feeding you with a steady stream of both pleasure and pain. Pleasure from being in that person's company. Pain from the realization that you are not together. Etc. But it is a leach. And it makes you think that you do NOT want to get rid of it.

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Now, let's say, you DO want to be able to get over your infatuation/crush/attraction/longing/unrequited love. Well, there are two options.

OPTION 1:, achieve it. Well, it's possible. Remove yourself from the person, work on your self-image, self-confidence, achieve self-respect, and re-enter the person's life, and most likely if you'd had taken an actual SERIOUS self-assessment and worked on self-improvement, you would've changed a lot more than she has. Impressing her that way is a great first step. Then, you act like you have a clean slate. Use your newfound confidence, pursue her, and get her. Easier said than done, I know. I didn't say it would be easy. But here's the thing, I'm not talking about going away for a month, pumping some weights once or twice and trimming your nose hair. I'm talking about a serious fundamental re-evaluation of who you are as a person, and what you have to offer to other people. Learn new skills. Find out what you can do that intrigues and attracts other people (men AND women). If you can't think of anything, learn something. And try out your new chops on other women. If you expect to catch a whale, you gotta learn how to catch a trout.

Okay, OPTION 2: Option 2 is a lot like Option 1. Except at the end, you DON'T go after the object of your desire. Again, LOLZ, right? What? WTF? Wasn't that the whole point? Well, yes, yes it was. But an interesting thing may, and a lot of times WILL happen when you take the time to put some time and space between yourself and a person you are in love with...you may find yourself slowly getting over them. Not only that, but going after OTHER people will often make that desire weaker as well, as you realize that all-important point that your friends and family have been telling you for years but you just could not figure out until you saw it for yourself: "Holy shit, there are other people that are right for me!" "There are other people that can make me happy." "There are other people I can love".

To truly win a person that you've had an unrequited crush on for longer than a reasonable amount of time, you need to first move on from them and re-discover them as a person, not as a symbol. And in the course of this process, you just may discover that you no longer want this person.