Girls confuse me. Really! They all say they want to be asked out by a great guy who won’t hurt them, who’ll love them for who they truly are, and who’ll bring them chocolate and heating pads when they’re on their periods. It’s all a lie! Even if a guy like that does come along, he’s brushed off to the side, thought of as no more than a friend, or even worse, “like a brother” to them.

I’m shuddering just at the thought of this.

I mean, really! Listen, I’ve known this one girl since kindergarten. We used to carpool together, our dads went to pharmacy school together, there’s the whole deal going on here. I’m always the one who she turns to whenever times get tough- if a friend of hers was being particularly b****y that day, if she got a bad grade in school, if some boy left her on “Read.” This last situation keeps happening more and more often, and the more often it happened, the more I realized what position I was really in.

The friendzone.

Save your gasps for later; my case was already terminal.

She called me only whenever something is wrong. She said she wishes there were guys like me around. Well, I was a guy like me, and I was standing right here.

When her boyfriend dumped her a week before Homecoming, I offered to go with her, and in her desperate state of mind, she said yes. I was so excited: I bought her flowers from my aunt’s floral shop (the pink ones she always went on about), I asked my brother if he could drive us in his beat-up car so we didn’t have to take the bus (in exchange for a month’s worth of doing his chores), I borrowed my dad’s old tux and ironed it myself and everything. When I got there, she looked so cute with her frilly white dress, her curled ringlets draping down to the middle of her back, and her cute little white heels. I couldn’t believe that any of this was happening.

Don’t think I’m blind- I saw her reaction when she saw that my older brother was driving us there in his pajamas in his beat-up car that was practically falling apart on our way there. I saw the way she looked at the wilted flowers that I awkwardly handed to her. And I saw the way she’d look away whenever I’d gawk at her beauty. I tried to hide my disappointment, but it wasn’t easy.

When we got to the front of the line to get it, the bouncer asked for our tickets. I completely blanked. In all of my preparation, I forgot to bring our tickets to actually get into the dance. I anxiously shuffled through my pockets, but all I could find was a twenty and an empty gum wrapper.

“Twenty’s enough to get one of you in,” the bouncer said. “Step out of the line for a second while you figure out which of you is going.”

Of course I let her go. The only reason I wanted to go was to be with her; I wasn’t even planning on going without her. The look in her eyes when I said she could go was one of happiness, and that’s all that mattered to me in the moment.

So there I was, sitting outside our school gym, wilted flowers in my hand, with a heavy feeling in my heart. My brother was already gone, and it was a five mile walk, if I was up for it. She kept updating her story on Snapchat, and one of last posts I watched was a video of her and that jerk who dumped her a week before all over each other. Great.

So I thought to myself, “Is five miles really all that bad?” I was about to find out.

On the walk home, I mentally, and physically, kicked myself for thinking I had a chance. She was exceptional, beautiful, amazing, and I? Well, I was nothing.

My opinion of myself just got worse and worse as time went on. The more guys I saw her with, the less she’d talk to me. It got to the point where she wouldn’t even make eye contact with me if I’d wave at her in the halls.

The deterioration of my self esteem went on for weeks, months, maybe even a year or two. After what happened at Homecoming, I sat myself down and put some sense into myself. Why was this girl, this person, this human being the sole reason for my self-induced depression? What good will crying over her and making myself even more upset do? No one will benefit from this. Not my friends, not my family, not her, and especially not me. It was time I think of myself for a change, not some other girl who doesn’t even give me a second look. “The friend zone” is not a place you’re stuck in. You can pull yourself out anytime, and find a girl who cares about you for you. Or guy, I’m not judging.

Speaking of which, I’ll talk to you later. I’m going to go eat lunch with Sara, a girl who’s beautiful, intelligent, funny, but most importantly, who loves me for me.