Hey Catastrophic Crush-tastrophe,

I’m so sorry this is happening to you. It’s a major bummer. When you have a crush, there’s always the exciting hope that they might feel the same way. But if your crush likes somebody else…well that hope is kinda…CRUSHED (no pun intended).

You ask if you should stop crushing on him, like it’s that easy. If it IS that easy for you, then yes, you should. Mostly for your own sake, because watching him go on and on about the girl he already likes is going to be SO hard if you’re still crushing on him. And also because you don’t want to be the kind of person who gets in the middle of that sort of thing and tries to control who he likes or doesn’t like. Please believe me, you control another person.

But the fact is, I’m afraid you also can’t just flip your crush feelings off like a light switch either. I mean, I’ve never been able to. Most people can’t which is why crushes are so complicated sometimes. Life would be a lot easier if we could, am I right?

So how do you get over your crush? Or at least handle him liking someone else without too much heartache?

1. First, let yourself feel sad. Express those feelings in a journal or playing music. Try telling your dog, cat, fish or whatever pet you have about it. Whatever. Let the feelings out. It’ll be a lot harder to move on if you skip this step.
2. Try to limit how much you have to be around him, especially when he’s going on and on about this other crush. That might mean unfollowing on social media, so you don’t see posts about it or photos of them together. It might mean sitting somewhere different at lunch when you’re back in school. There might be situations you can’t change, like if you all have classes together, but just do what you can to forget about it.
3. Stay busy. Start a new hobby, learn a new language, or Skype your grandma. Whatever it takes to distract you so you don’t have time to sit around thinking about your crush.
4. If you have friends who know about your crush, tell them you’re trying to get over it and remind them not to bring him up around you. You might even ask them to stop talking about crushes altogether, just for a while.
5. Finally, give it time. That’s the most important thing for getting over crushes, I think. It’s not going to happen overnight. But it WILL happen.

What are your tips for getting over a crush? Do you stop crushing on someone if they like somebody else? Tell us in the comments!