Why would a girl not want you to know she has a crush on you?

The other women in my family felt that there was something wrong with me. They could not understand why I wasn't interested in makeup, doing my hair in something other than a ponytail, trying to make good grades (instead of just underperforming and pretending that the boys were smarter) or dressing in more feminine-like clothing. My mother especially. She told me that no boy would ever like me if I didn't make more of an effort to look attractive, and if he did, he was lying so he could get sex from the plain girl (meaning me). Nowadays I know that it's not necessarily true, and different guys have different preferences, but at the time it really hurt. I decided that it was better to simply be platonic friends with guys, rather than hoping for more.

Even the guys who could have been interested in me, if I knew that a friend of mine was interested in him, or he was into my friend first, I wouldn't make my feelings known. I would also decline those scattered date requests, if I knew that my friend had liked him first or if he liked my friend first. Girls can be weird about that kind of thing, and the last thing I wanted was drama. Some female friends of mine got jealous of the guy liking me, even if they weren't interested themselves. Immature, but it was like that sometimes. They were good friends otherwise, but throw a guy into the mix and they could get very catty. A few of my male friends acted very odd or even jealous when someone else would ask me out, but obviously their reasoning was a little different, unbeknownst to me. It literally didn't occur to me until many years later that they may have possibly liked me themselves. I do not do well with “signals” and assumed they were lying or had the deliberate intention of mocking me even if they were able to ask me out.

I was raised as an ultra-conservative Christian. In those conservative circles, girls were instructed not to make the first move if she liked a boy, or even make it known. Ever. No exceptions, even if you went to the same church (multidenominational relationships were frowned upon, if not outright forbidden, even in different Christian denominations). It just wasn't done, even in the 90s. Girls who did were denounced as skanks, if not outright sl*ts. “Good girls” waited patiently to be asked, and if they weren't asked, it wasn't meant to be. I remember being told as a teenager by my mother that I would get the punishment of my life if she ever found out that I called a boy first, or asked a boy out on a date, instead of him calling or asking me out first. This is not as common nowadays, but some parents are still like that.

How do you deal with neighbors who are always telling you what to do?

I was convinced that the guy was “out of my league.” Usually, I tried to be fairly careful about who I had a crush on, trying to stick with the cute, smart, sweet and shy guys who could make me laugh, but every now and then I would find myself liking guys who were popular or otherwise unavailable (like one of the football players). This wasn't what I wanted, but sometimes feelings can't be helped. I wouldn't show it, and stayed stonefaced until the crush would finally pass. I knew that if the popular girls ever found out about it, they would make my life a living hell. It wasn't worth getting bullied by jealous popular girls at school (or later, at work).

In my case, only a few guys have figured out that I had a crush on them, and that was usually because they figured it out. I felt like I had to deny it to preserve my reputation as a “good Christian girl.” It wasn't because I told them about how I felt (there were only two exceptions as an adult; one didn't like me back and the other one did). As far as why, there were usually a few core reasons.

I was brutally humiliated in the eighth grade. I had this crush on a very smart (cough NERDY coughcough) Asian guy in some of my classes, and I guess I was a little too obvious about it (not that he liked me back, lol!) and the other kids figured it out. They tortured me about it, calling me an ugly sl*t, and the usual bullying I received was jacked up times 10, until they found someone else to mock in a few weeks. Neither of us was popular in the slightest, and if there was any chance of his returning my feelings, it was eliminated by the other kids viciously taunting us. (There were no anti-bullying rules back then, and my middle school teachers and principal preferred not to get involved with things like that.) I know that I'm an adult now, but having something like that happen when you're just barely in your teens does something to you, and nothing good. I'm just thankful that this happened years before social media was a thing. I'm also very thankful that nobody from my church attended my middle school, to help spread the entirely false rumors about my supposed “sl*tty behavior,” just because the wrong person noticed that I had a crush on someone. After that incident, I was very careful about letting people notice any of my potential crushes on anyone. I was afraid to do so, considering it sl*tty to show my feelings to anyone. Some men my age still think like this even though junior high/middle school (grades 6–9, or ages 11-15 or so) is now several decades behind us.

What is your craziest college sex story?

Any of these things (or others) could be going on with girls who don't want to admit what they feel.

Shyness. Eventually my childhood shyness faded, although my introversion remained. As far as crushes, the shyness was still full force. I literally couldn't tell them how I felt. If I didn't like them like that, I was fine, and treated them like I would any other friend. If I did, forget it. I never thought anyone would like me or be attracted to me enough to want to date me, so why hope for something different. (These feelings still creep up even now.)