almost
a little story about having a crush, romanticizing possibilities, and finding something else along the way.
i think having a crush on someone you barely know is one of the funniest things a human being can do.
think about it. you know a few things about them, maybe their hobbies, the kind of activities they enjoy, a couple of random facts you happen to pick up from conversations. and somehow, your brain decides that this is enough information to develop an entire storyline.
you start wondering what they’re like, what it would be like to get to know them better, whether you would get along, and whether there’s a possibility of something happening between you two.
all of this, by the way, without actually knowing whether you have anything in common beyond the few things you’ve observed.
i know. a little ridiculous.
but i guess that’s how it started for me.
it was supposed to be just a harmless little crush. someone interesting, someone i admired from a distance, someone who made ordinary office days a little more exciting.
i didn’t expect it to last that long. and i certainly didn’t expect it to become one of those stories i’d eventually want to write about.
not because something extraordinary happened between us. in fact, not much happened at all.
and maybe that’s exactly the point.
the more you don’t know, the more you imagine
looking back, i think one of the reasons this crush lasted as long as it did was the lack of information.
i knew some things about him. his interests, his hobbies, the activities he enjoyed, and little details that occasionally came up in conversations. but i never really knew him beyond those fragments.
and apparently, my imagination was more than happy to do the rest of the work.
there were small interactions that i remembered for longer than i probably should have. a conversation here, a passing comment there, a little moment that made me wonder whether there was something worth exploring.
sometimes, i would catch myself looking for signs in the most ordinary things.
did that interaction mean anything? was that just him being nice? was there actually something there, or was i simply being creative with the available information?
i think i spent a considerable amount of time trying to answer questions that didn’t even have enough data to begin with.
if only i had applied this much dedication to something more productive. lol.
but there’s something interesting about liking someone from a distance. you get to experience the excitement of having feelings without having to deal with the reality of actually knowing the person.
you can imagine compatibility without testing it. you can admire their qualities without knowing their flaws. you can entertain a possibility without ever having to find out whether it would work.
in a way, it’s a very convenient arrangement.
until it isn’t.
somewhere along the way, i found something else
one thing i didn’t expect was how this little crush would indirectly introduce me to things that eventually became a big part of my life.
i became more curious about activities i had previously only observed from a distance. i started exploring new interests, learning about unfamiliar things, and eventually finding communities of my own.
running was one of them.
what initially started as curiosity about someone else’s lifestyle gradually became something i genuinely enjoyed.
i started signing up for races, exploring trails, spending weekends training, and learning how to deal with things i never thought i would willingly put myself through.
long runs, steep climbs, tired legs, questionable race decisions, and the occasional existential crisis somewhere halfway through a trail.
somewhere between all those things, running became mine.
i had my own goals to chase, my own finish lines to reach, and my own reasons to keep going.
i no longer needed to associate every running-related thing with someone else. i could enjoy the sport for what it was and for what it had given me.
and i think that’s one of the things i appreciate most about this experience.
someone who initially made me curious about a certain lifestyle indirectly introduced me to something that would eventually become part of my identity.
funny how life works sometimes.
you think you’re interested in one thing, only to discover that there’s an entirely different thing waiting for you along the way.
perhaps he was never the destination. maybe he was just one of the unexpected reasons i started moving.
the things i almost did
for quite some time, i considered doing something about my feelings.
i thought about being more direct, initiating more conversations, or simply telling him how i felt.
at one point, i even entertained the idea of confessing through a rather unconventional method. let’s just say i briefly considered turning my feelings into a small digital project.
yes, i was apparently one google form away from making this everyone’s problem.
but i never actually did it.
part of me wanted to know whether there was something there. another part of me was perfectly comfortable keeping things as they were.
i wanted clarity, but i was also afraid of what clarity might bring.
so i stayed somewhere in between.
i would occasionally find myself checking little things, noticing small interactions, and wondering whether certain moments meant something.
sometimes, i would post something and secretly hope that a particular person would see it.
it’s funny how a simple story view could suddenly become an event worth monitoring.
i knew it was silly. i knew that a person’s instagram activity was probably not the most reliable indicator of romantic interest.
yet there i was, conducting a one-person investigation with absolutely no scientific basis.
but i think most people who have ever had a crush can understand this. feelings don’t always make us rational. sometimes, we just want to feel that there’s a possibility, even when we know we might be making one up.
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eventually, i decided not to confess.
not because i was waiting for something to happen forever, but because i started questioning whether i actually needed to do anything about it.
maybe i just wanted to know him better. maybe i wanted to find out whether the person i had imagined was anything like the person in reality.
or maybe i had simply become too attached to the idea of what could happen.
i didn’t have all the answers.
and for a while, i was okay with that.
when the what-ifs finally had an answer
at some point, i found out that he was seeing someone.
i had actually suspected it for a while, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected. still, there’s a difference between suspecting something and finally knowing it.
when the confirmation came, i thought i would feel something more dramatic.
but my first reaction was relief.
genuine relief.
it felt like finally getting an answer to a question i had been carrying around for quite some time.
there was no more wondering, no more interpreting little things, and no more entertaining imaginary scenarios about what might happen someday.
the possibility had finally become something i could stop thinking about.
and honestly, i was happy for him.
what surprised me more was what happened afterward.
despite feeling relieved, i found myself a little unmotivated. there was this strange feeling of emptiness that i couldn’t immediately explain.
which was interesting, considering there wasn’t technically anything to lose.
we had never been together. we had never built a relationship. there was no shared future that suddenly disappeared.
so what exactly was i feeling?
i think i eventually figured it out.
i wasn’t grieving a relationship. i was letting go of a possibility.
a version of the future that i had spent quite some time imagining, even though it had barely existed outside my own head.
and maybe that was worth acknowledging, too.
just because something never happened doesn’t mean the feelings surrounding it weren’t real.
i don’t think i lost anything
for a while, i wondered whether i should consider those years a waste of time.
i mean, imagine having a crush on someone for that long and not even getting a proper love story out of it.
what a questionable investment.
but the more i thought about it, the less i wanted to look at it that way.
i don’t think i lost anything.
i liked someone. i found them interesting. i entertained the possibility of something more, and eventually, i found out that it wasn’t going to happen.
that’s pretty much it.
there was no competition, no winner, and no loser. someone else’s presence in his life doesn’t make me any less interesting, and the fact that things didn’t develop between us doesn’t mean i wasn’t enough.
i don’t want to turn this into a story about someone who didn’t choose me.
that would be giving this experience a meaning it never really had.
i also don’t think he needs to be the villain of a story just because things didn’t happen the way i once imagined. he was simply living his life, as was i.
and perhaps that’s the most ordinary, yet important, realization i’ve had.
not everything needs to lead somewhere to be meaningful.
some people become part of our stories without necessarily becoming part of our lives in the way we once imagined.
sometimes, they introduce us to new interests, new experiences, or even new versions of ourselves.
and sometimes, we only realize that after the chapter has already ended.
there’s still so much more
i think i’m finally at a point where i can look back at this whole experience and smile a little.
not because i think it was particularly romantic, but because it’s funny how much can happen inside your head when reality gives you so little to work with.
i don’t regret having that crush. i don’t regret the little moments i remember, the curiosity, or even the occasional overthinking.
it was a phase of my life, and i think it deserves to be remembered as one.
but i also know that there’s so much more waiting for me outside of it.
more roads to run, more trails to explore, more finish lines to cross, more places to visit, and more people to meet.
there are still so many things i want to experience and so many versions of myself i haven’t met yet.
and i’d rather be excited about those things than spend too much time wondering about something that never happened.
maybe that’s what i’ve learned from all of this.
not every almost is a missed opportunity. not every unfinished story is a failure. and not every person who enters our lives has to stay there for their presence to mean something.
some things are simply meant to remain as memories.
it was almost something. and i’m perfectly okay with that.
