On Good Behavior: Unrequited Love and Doing Halloween Right
by Tianna Loverde | @tiannaloverde
I fell in love with my friend who has a boyfriend, but I can't help fantasizing about kissing her. I tried to get closer to her, and if she didn't have a boyfriend, I'd even think she might be into me and try to make a move. But she talks about that guy a lot, so it's tough here. The other day we were watching Adventure Time during lunch and she took a picture, and I thought "wow so cute," but then she said she was sending it to her boyfriend. *rip*
Anyway, I really like her, even though I know my chances are low. I like being in love after all this time of having bitterness in my heart. I like the feeling and the silliness and how I know I would do the stupidest things for her.
I’m obviously deeply rooting for you and your friend and planning on how to get rid of the boyfriend in question. How beautiful it is of your heart to feel everything so deeply without remorse.
I do worry for you, though. It can be so easy to romanticize unrequited love while blasting “I Know” by Fiona Apple and pretending you’re sitting alone in a hotel bar. Until one day you wake up and realize there is nothing romantic or easy or even funny about what you’re feeling. And if you can’t laugh, then what’s the point? I once silently harbored intense feelings for a person who was coupled with someone who wasn’t me (ok, weird?) and got very close to being hit by a car while running because I was lost in thought about them. Everyone around us looked at me with palpable disapproval as if to say, Hi are you awake right now? Are you with us?
I don’t think I was. Because this sort of longing has a sneaky way of bridging the gap between you and an altered reality where stolen glances must mean something more than that you were staring at them and they simply returned your gaze. I understand how fun it can be to indulge fantasy and allow yourself to live here. Is there anything better than sitting next to someone and feeling like you’re nothing more than the touch of your arms brushing against one another?
The thing is, the longer your feelings fester and grow, the more your bitterness will build. Consciously or not. And then one day you’ll be hanging out with your friend, and she’ll be like, you’re acting weird, what’s wrong? And all your universes will collide and before you can help yourself you’ll be screaming I’m in love with you, you gorgeous idiot!!! And then where do you go from there, you know?
She could share the same feelings for you, but that it is one possibility in the realm of many. The objective truth of the situation is that she is currently taken by another. No one is forcing her to be in that relationship, even if it doesn’t make sense when you’re … right there. I don’t get it either. But her heart lies elsewhere, for now. You could wait around for that to change, but that’d be a punishing waste of time that runs the risk of jeopardizing your friendship.
The great news is that the joy, the silliness, the selflessness you are experiencing has all to do with you. You’ll bring that with you wherever you go. And if you’re capable of feeling all of these big, stunning feelings for the wrong person, can you imagine how good it will feel when it’s the right one?
♥︎
Why don’t we tell people our kinks more openly? I feel like this would lead to a lot more kissing. How do we collectively become more confident in expressing our kinks and desires before we’re in the bedroom?
If I like to be tied up and you like to be tied up, who's driving the bus? Sorry, I just had a flashback to the time I realized it was Not Going to Work Out with the person I was seeing. C'est la vie! Life is way too short and precious to have unfulfilling sex. We all deserve to touch and be touched in a way that gives us something to think about when someone boring is talking.
To your point, the path to more kissing involves having honest conversations around what turns us on. Reframing kinks as a device of pleasure and measure of compatibility, rather than a Rorschach test of our personality/our trauma/the type of relationship we have with our dad, makes it easier to talk about them without deep feelings of shame or embarrassment. Despite popular belief, not everything is a symptom of something else.
How to become more confident is … to do it. Quite simply. And it’ll get easier each time. Plus, it’s literally sooooooo hot to know what you want and to be able to express it. When the time is appropriate, it’s as easy as asking, what are you into, by the way? Or speak to your own experience first … I recently watched Challengers, and it’s made me think about a lot of things …
If conversations with your sexual partners feel too intimidating, microdose the experience by talking about it with your friends. The next time there’s a lull in a conversation, ask what’s been turning them on lately. When they answer, say, that’s NOT ok and leave the table. Just kidding, of course. Celebrate the little freak that they are. Show me yours and I’ll show you mine?
♥︎
dear tianna,
How do I do Halloween the right way? I want my costume to be sexy, but not the kind of sexy people make fun of (certainly not a cop in tiny shorts, a reference to something that enough people but not everyone will understand). I want to have fun with my friends but not burn out or hate myself by Monday morning. Should I just hand out candy to kids in my neighborhood in a sweatshirt that says “this is my costume”? SOS!!!
yours truly,
halloweekend terror
With so much love in my heart, I need you to put the sweatshirt down. There are no rules when it comes to Halloween but please stay away from sardonicism — it’s not good for your skin and will lead you towards treacherous people.
Ok! Now that that’s out of the way. It sounds like you want to be casually sexy and esoteric, which is awesome. The balance of being recognizable without being obvious is an art. But don’t worry too much about people knowing who you are — as long as you’re not annoying about it. And I say this as someone who told my friend I was dressing up as the concept of nostalgia to which she responded no, you’re not and that she was saving me from myself (I was being annoying).
If it feels right to you, lean into it. No one will make fun of you if you look sexy enough. It’s not fair but it’s true. I actually think bagged costumes are going to come back in a big way. Personally, I’m spiritually at odds with the concept of trying on a shirt, shorts, socks, etc., that are all one size and what that would do to my relationship to my body. But saving yourself from effort and loud conversations where you’re trying to explain your costume (or god forbid, pulling out your phone to show a picture) has its own appeal.
Anyway, you won’t hate yourself on Monday because that’s what Sunday is for! Monday is for reflecting on the person you were twelve hours ago, shaking your head, wondering, Were we ever so young? and moving on. Good luck!!!
♥︎
Hi Tianna, when do you know you’re grown up? You would think it would be clear by your mid-20s, but I feel like there is still so much to do.
Oh, you’re like one of the youngest people alive. I long to host a dinner party and sit you down opposite the warm (and somewhat hostile) gaze of an elder shaking their head and telling you that you’re a baby. Because you are. Doesn’t that feel good? And I don’t mean this in the trendy, infantilizing but I’m just a girl sense. Controversially, I think it’s important that you can make phone calls and do simple math.
What I mean is that there’s so much time for you to be a grown up, it’s almost comical. But there probably won’t be One Singular Moment that will clear the fog and absolve you of your uncertainty. Unless you have a kid or something, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. For now, embrace the cloudiness. You are a grown up but you’re something else too. You know everything and you are wrong about most things. Because there will be a time when the dust settles and it’s no longer acceptable to be in a bad mood because you had a dream your ex became a painter and started selling their work to raise money for charity. And the paintings were randomly really beautiful?
What a shame it’d be to waste the grace your nauseatingly self-involved whims are met with at this age in turn of the gratification that the title of adult may earn you. Try to lose that voice in your head and see what’s on the other side. You said it — there is still so much to do. How exciting is that? Now it’s time to do it.
Tianna Loverde is a writer based in Los Angeles, California. She has a Substack titled “Tuesday’s Gossip” where she publishes personal essays. She loves blushing, the day when you’re waiting for your film to develop, and wearing pajamas in public.
