- Heya, playa!
When you have a crush in high school
and they don't exactly like you back,
it could be difficult to try to persuade them
to not go out with anyone else.
And that's the exact challenge that I ran into
in high school when my crush started to like my best friend.
But don't worry.
I'm gonna share that story with you
and tell you exactly how I navigated through it.
♪ This is The Josh Speaks ♪
♪ Watching The Josh Speaks ♪
- I've shared this story with you before
and I'll link up the video in the description.
But let me give you a quick recap
about what happened.
This is a girl that I would communicate
back and forth with every single day.
I would write letters to her.
She would write letters to me.
But, in the end of it all,
I got friend-zoned.
And, sadly, there was even a point where she tried
to go out with another guy and I got all upset
and threw my letter at her.
I explain in more detail in the video.
Suffice it to day, in the end,
we remained friends.
But what happened next is really the part
that hurt me a lot more.
One of my friends in high school was a lot more advanced
in terms of dressing and style than I was in high school.
I was wearing loose-fitting and worn-out Spider-Man t-shirts
to school every single day while he was wearing
fitted button-down t-shirts that looked really good on him.
My philosophy at the time was to wear whatever
you wanted to wear, and I still hold that to today.
But I've altered it just a little bit.
I think what you choose to wear,
you should love, but it should also look good on you.
But, for me, that wasn't the case.
My appearance looked like I just grabbed
any clothes that has Spider-Man on them
and just put them on regardless if they had holes,
were washed-out, or anything.
Along with my friend's style,
there was a certain suaveness to him
that I just didn't have.
When me and him would talk,
it felt completely normal.
But when he talked to girls,
he had a certain allure about him
that really drew them into the conversation.
And in watching him, I always thought,
how is he doing it?
When he talks to girls, it always looks like
both of them are flirting.
But when I talk to girls,
it looks like we're just kind of talking
until we can walk away.
And this came into full effect when I started
to bring my friend-zone crush to hang out with us.
Whenever I would talk to her,
she would always tell me,
you're such a good friend.
I'm so lucky to have you.
You're such a great guy.
But whenever he talked to her,
she would say the opposite.
She would say things like, ugh, he's such a jerk sometimes.
Who does he think he is?
Which I thought was a sign that she liked me
and didn't really like him.
And, for whatever reason,
whenever we would hang out,
he would call her nicknames like Shorty,
because she was short,
and he would take the first letters
of her first name and last name
and refer to her as that.
And I kept thinking, what are you doing?
You're getting her to like you even less.
She's making fun of you, too,
and you both have that thing going on.
And this is how it seemed to go.
The two of them would go back and forth
making fun of each other and teasing one another
while I sat in the middle trying to win her over
by being her best friend.
Looking back on it, I realize that they weren't
actually making fun of each other.
That's how they were flirting.
By teasing each other,
they were showing the other person that,
hey, I think you're interesting and I'm going
to make fun of you just to haze you a little bit.
And I didn't get that at the time
because I don't think I was at the flirting maturity level
that the two of them were at.
So as time passed, she began to ask me every time
me and her were together where was my friend
and it started to bother me a little bit.
But what really bothered me was that fateful time
that she told me, hey, I think your friend
is actually kind of cool.
Do you think they like me?
And my immediate answer was, no, no-no-no-no-no-no.
That is not going to happen under my watch.
After that, I went right to my friend
and I told him, you are not allowed to go out
with her because I like her and I liked her first.
And that's when my friend followed the bro code
and simply told me, hey, dude, look.
I know you like her and I'm not going to step
on your toes by going out with her even though
she may like me.
And that was an answer I highly respected.
Because, even though I liked her,
and even though I didn't have a chance with her,
he was still willing to forego that because
he knew that it was important to me
for them not to go out.
Now, was that always the right answer?
No.
Every situation is different and, in some cases,
it might have made more sense for me to let them go out
so I can move on.
But the tale continues with my cool suave friend.
There was a girl that he really liked
that he had went out with for a little bit
and they were still on and off.
Now, this specific girl was part of our friend group
and I was friends with her at the time, too.
So I was there to witness their whole back-and-forth drama.
They went out for a bit.
The broke up.
They tried to make it work again.
They broke up.
They just couldn't seem to fit all the pieces together
so, eventually, they called it quits.
Even though they called it quits,
he still had feelings for her.
But they weren't around as much because they kind of
didn't want to run into those awkward experiences
of seeing each other.
And this left me to hang out with her
and her friends a lot.
And in that time, I guess, me and her started
to develop something.
I would joke around and tease her all the time
and I just thought, hey, that's part of our relationship,
until another friend of ours said, hey,
why do you just go out with her?
And that girl was totally onboard with it.
She eventually moved on from my cool suave friend
and now was ready to start dating again.
But when the opportunity presented itself
and I could've just asked her out,
I remembered what my friend did and I decided
to respect the bro code.
He still had deep, deep feelings for her and,
if I went out with her,
it would totally crush his spirit.
So I decided not to do it.
I told her that he deserved my respect
because he respected me by not going out
with my main high school crush.
She was totally okay with that
and we remained just-friends,
and my friend had a much deeper respect for me
because I didn't go behind his back.
At the end of the day, life went on.
And the best part about it is the fact
that we respected each other.
We talked to each other beforehand,
before we made any decisions.
He knew it would hurt me if he went after
the girl that I liked, and I knew it would hurt him
if I went after the girl that he still liked.
And, I know.
Sometimes when you really, really like someone,
it's hard to make that right decision.
But it very important to show respect
for the people that you call your friends.
And, oddly enough, I also made a video
for you guys a while ago sharing a story
about a time I supposedly didn't follow the bro code
which you can watch at the end of this video.
What do you think, though?
Did I make the right call?
Should I have just gone out with a girl
and went against the bro code?
Leave your comments below and we'll talk about it.
Guys, look, you're going to have tons and tons
of crushes all throughout the years.
But what you're not always going to have
is a core group of friends that you can say you respect.
So, remember, at the end of the day,
always talk things out with your friends.
It can be scary sometimes and can create some tension.
But you'll respect yourself a whole lot more
if you take that route.
As always, guys, love and peace.