5 SURE WAYS TO MANAGE YOUR CRUSH – PART 1

As a school counselor in a secondary school, I receive many clients daily with many different issues. One student recently came to my office and told me that a lady he once dated broke up with him unexpectedly after they had dated for a term. Although it’s been two years since the breakup, he claims he’s still not been able to get over her. In fact, he actually said that he hasn’t crushed on any other lady since. Although I sympathized with him (especially because I had the same experience on 3rd March, 2010 around 8:30pm after I had dated the lady for 8 months, 18 days and 2 hours), I made it clear to him that he could get over it and that all he had to do was to make a decision to accept the past and progress in life. Just like his experience, many people think that it is impossible to control your emotions when you crush on someone and this lie, once believed, usually causes many people to make mistakes that could have been avoided. Following my article on KILL THAT CRUSH! OTHERWISE TEST IT! https://sayinspires.wixsite.com/website/post/kill-that-crush-otherwise-test-it , In this article, I am going to share with you 3 of the 5 practical ways of lovingly managing your crush, that is, if you have decided to test it or kill it (please read that article to get more insight into that). I will share the other two in my next article. Apart from the first management principle which must be applied with the same intensity, the intensity with which the other principles must be applied when killing the crush must be higher than when you are testing it. The second to fourth management principles were borrowed from Pastor KK Baidoo’s book, Love at first sight, which talks in depth about crushes and which I recommend to you as well. Below are the management principles:

1. Don’t indulge: One dictionary defines indulge as to yield to a temptation or desire. Whenever you indulge your intention is to pursue the person directly or indirectly in order to draw the other person’s attention towards you. In order not to indulge, take note of the following:

• Don’t tell your crush about the crush. When you crush on someone, it’s your problem and not the person’s problem so why tell the person? As a matter of fact, it is manipulative to tell your crush about the crush. You can read my article on DON’T TELL YOUR CRUSH ABOUT THE CRUSH https://sayinspires.wixsite.com/website/post/what-s-really-wrong-with-telling-your-crush-about-the-crush for a more detailed explanation.

• Don’t start a romantic relationship solely based on a crush. In Proverbs 19:2, Solomon says that having desire without knowledge is not good. Having a crush in this case is desire and therefore you need to seek knowledge through different means (like reading this article and Pastor KK Baidoo’s book) before you can make a wise and well informed decision. It will be very disastrous if you go into a romantic relationship with someone only because you are crushing on the person.

• Don’t lead the other person on. To lead the other person on is to try to get the person’s attention by stirring up his or her emotional connection toward you. This is very dangerous in cases where the crush is mutual. Although you may not necessarily enter into a romantic relationship or an implied relationship (where you are “dating” without any official proposal and acceptance), you may have some form of sexual contact with each other like kissing, tight hugging or even penetrative sex. Instead of leading the other person on, lead yourself to the throne of grace where you can find mercy and obtain grace to help you (Hebrews 4:16)

2. Allow time to pass: As I explained in my previous article – THE PASSION OF A CRUSH https://sayinspires.wixsite.com/website/post/the-passion-of-a-crush - crushes are ephemeral. I have crushed on many ladies in my lifetime, right from when I was in primary school, but I think my longest crushes have been on two ladies, each for two years. And guess what? The second lady is the one I am dating right now. And the first lady? She’s married to another wonderful man. So you see, although the first one didn’t lead to anything serious, the second one did and I am trusting God that it will end in marriage. In fact this is clear indication that time is a great way to manage a crush. Whether you choose to kill the crush or test it, I recommend that you give yourself at least 6 months. To the one who is killing the crush, the six month time you give yourself must be the time when you are hoping the crush will completely die off or reduce drastically. To the one testing the crush, your intention during this six month period is to find out whether your level of interest toward the person will be the same, would have reduced or increased. Within this period firmly apply the other management principles as well. In fact, not applying the other management techniques is like taking a medical test recommended by a doctor who received only a part of the vital information needed to make the right diagnosis.

3. Talk to a counselor: I have already indicated that it’s not wise to tell your crush about the crush. It’s however wiser to talk to a counselor instead. Why? Because a counselor has much wisdom from his own experience as well as the experiences of others and that can be very rich resource for you to make a good decision. By saying counselor, I don’t mean just anybody who has that title. In my opinion, a good counselor (mustn’t necessarily have the title) in this context is someone whom you know has an understanding in this subject and can give you good counsel. I also recommend that if possible, you talk to someone who knows you (either you alone or you and your crush) personally. You may also want to talk to friends and colleagues whom you know can tell you the truth without fear or favour. Kindly check the part 2 of this article for the other management techniques.