More Love Triangle Frustrations

As I mentioned in this blog, I love me some rom-coms and slice of life stories. But there are things about them that never fail to frustrate the living daylights out of me. One of the most popular tropes for these genres to keep things interesting and keep the audience on the toes is lack of communication. I get there are times in real life where love makes you goofy and times where you think you know the feelings of those around you without talking to them but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. Let me give you the run down of how it usually plays out. Person A and Person B are getting cozy with each other and have both finally realized their own feelings for the other one. But A assumes B likes C. To their credit, they want B to be happy (to B happy, get it? haha.... anyway) so A tells B that they are gonna help B get C. However, meanwhile, B had just gathered up the courage to tell A that they like A and with this offering they assume that A doesn't like them.

Why?!?! If you just told them, "no that's okay I actually don't like that person, I like you," Everything would be solved. But because both assume there is no way that the other person could like them they just suffer for no reason. Yes, people do this in real life and I get why they do. It's so scary to be rejected. But many of the characters are instead stuck in this limbo of not being able to move on because they have such strong unresolved feelings. And there are certain instances where, yes, if they are currently in a relationship or in a position of power or something where your feelings would not be able to be reciprocated, I understand not wanting to say anything. But here's a bit of psychology for you that I have learned lately. If you find yourself stuck in a situation where something is causing you enough stress for it to make you miserable you have three options: you can accept it, you can leave it, or you can change it.

In this instance, accepting it would be acknowledging that you for whatever reasons don't want to tell the other person your feelings. If you accept it you can move on, find someone else, stay single and you can choose to just be friends with this person. You can leave it, which is similar in this instance to the last option but probably just removing yourself from the situation (maybe distancing yourself from the unrequited crush). But most of these characters care too much about that person to just leave them which only means one thing: they have to tell them and change the situation. The person may say no (in which case you can accept or leave that situation since you already tried to change it and no means no), or they may say yes in which case you get together. But in any of these options, not remaining in the limbo will vastly reduce stress.

So for god's sake if you're upset because of some feelings you assume another person has but you have not flat out talked to them about that, just ask. And stay happy, healthy and safe, my jellybeans!