Xander

Xander-syndrome. It’s when you have a crush on your best guy friends, but he only has eyes for the bubbly blonde sitting next to him. He sees you as his friend, his best friend, but he doesn’t see that you want so much more than that. He doesn’t want to see it. I suffered from Xander-syndrome my freshman year of high school.

I had a crush on a guy who was perfect, in my eyes anyway. Like any guy deserving of the nickname Xander he was nice, funny, loyal, and head-over-heels in love with the one girl he would never have. Like so many people, he wanted the unattainable ideal. I suppose I did, too.

He once told me that I was like a sister to him. No words have ever stung me more. A sibling is the one completely undateable person; no sane person would even consider it. I became determined to share my feelings with him, no matter the cost to my self-esteem. At least then he would know.

Try as I might, I couldn’t get up the courage to tell him to his face. I wrote about it instead. Well, as they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty. I know now that it wasn’t my most brilliant idea, but it seemed good at the time. Anyway the fault isn’t all mine; he completely overreacted.

A year after he found out about my crush, he moved away. For those twelve months he would even look at me, much less speak to me. A perfectly good friendship had been ruined, but at least I learned that these situations should be dealt with face-to-face, if at all possible. If I had told him to his face, he would have still respected my courage at least and the friendship wouldn’t have been completely destroyed.