Lone Admirer: 5 Reasons Keeping Your Crush Secret Will Only Hurt You

For two years, I have had an enormously huge crush on a guy who attends my university, and I've refused to tell him how I felt so I could protect myself from possible rejection.

I did not want to feel broken and hopeless if he were to shut me down and crush my dreams of being with him.

I continued to hold on to the secret feelings I had for him, while not realizing what I was doing to myself emotionally. For identity purposes, we will name him James.

So, what does any college woman who is infatuated with a guy do? She takes a class she has no interest in just so she can be in the same room as him (of course).

I sat next to James every Tuesday and Thursday for a semester, and loved every minute of it. It was the random quirky things I looked forward to the most, like seeing the doodles he made in his folder, hearing his fingers scratch his face and the simple fact that he was sitting right beside me for almost two hours of his life.

Then, last summer came. Since I was not going to see him, I thought I would surely get over him and find a summer love. Nope, I continued to day dream about the life I wanted with James, and I wouldn't even give any other guy a shot.

Rejection is frightfully scary. I was always afraid if I told him how I felt and he rejected me that it would mean I would have to move on. He was all I wanted; I couldn't even imagine liking someone else. Do I sound crazy yet?

In five short months, James will be graduating and will move on to bigger and better places without me. Who knows what would have happened if I would have just told him how I felt from the beginning?

If you like someone but are too afraid to admit it, please do not follow in my footsteps. Man up and tell this person. If not for you, then do it for me, a woman who lost the chance to tell the guy she liked how she felt.

We have all seen the movies where two lovers find each other years later, saying, “Oh my god, why didn't you tell me you loved me back then? Now I have 12 kids and am unhappily married! Blah, blah, blah.” Do not let that be you.

Let your "movie" be the love story you want.

Rejection can be painful, but the feeling of not even trying to reach out to the person you love is even worse. So, what happens if you do get rejected? Soak in the pain for a second and pick yourself back up; find the confidence in yourself to be happy without that person.

Who knows, maybe, just maybe, the feeling will be mutual. Just as the good old saying goes, you never know until you try.

Here are a few reasons why not telling a person you like him or her will hurt you in the long run:

Every day that passes by is an opportunity missed.

Every day you spend contemplating if you should open up or not is a day wasted. Every breath we take is a breath closer to death. Why waste those breaths on anything but expressing how we feel?

Someone else may swoop him or her up before you.

If you do not tell this person how you feel, someone else might beat you to the punch. Being rejected sucks, but not having even the chance of rejection because someone else stepped in is even worse.

Do not live with the regret of not telling this person how you feel -- especially every time you see him or her hand-in-hand with the person that, perhaps, could have been you.

You will have endless daydreams about your future, but they will never become a reality.

Playing scenarios in your head about what your life would be like if you were dating that person could be exhausting. It may start out fun, but will only be disappointing when the person you daydream about is not the same person in reality.

It can be so easy to fall into a dream world of what you want that person to be, but you might be building that person up to more than who he or she truly is.

For example, daydreaming about that one person running up to you, dramatically kissing you and saying, “I love you,” is a bit far-fetched if you have not even told this person how you feel.

Unrealistic daydreams will only disappoint you. Until you tell him or her how you feel, you may never get the chance to see if your daydreams can ever be more than just that.

You will miss the chance of being with someone else because you are too hung up on the one you like.

What if Mr. or Mrs. Wonderful is someone else you do not even pay attention to because you are too infatuated with the idea of being with the one you like?

When you are fixated on the one you like and do not tell him or her, you spend more time focused on being with someone who may not be your true love.

You will be wasting your time.

Days, weeks, months and (in my case) years can pass while liking that same person. If you do not tell him or her, what is the point of spending so much time dedicated to your feelings about this person? Wasting your time on a person who does not know how you feel will only hurt you in the end.

We are Millennials; we are supposed to be fearless and take what we want. We need to grow some balls and tell people how we feel.

Life is too short to let opportunities pass. If you tell someone how you feel and it does not work out, it will only feel like the end of the world until the next chapter of your life begins.

If you are not going to be with the person you like, let it be because he or she did not feel the same way, not because you were too afraid to open up.