Keeping Calm
Accept your feelings. You have a crush, which is normal and healthy, and you’ve decided you want to hide your feelings for now. Understandable! To hide your feelings, you need to stay calm around your crush. To beat your anxiety, you first need to accept that being around them might make you nervous. Being nervous is a completely normal emotional reaction. Don’t fight or ignore the feeling. You don’t need to feel angry at yourself or embarrassed about your nervousness. Accepting it can help you control it.
Breathe. Being around your crush can be really nerve-wracking. You might find yourself breathing very fast or holding your breath when they’re around. This is a normal reaction, but it can make you feel even more anxious. Keeping your breath slow and regular is an easy way to calm yourself down. Try a simple deep breathing exercise. Inhale while counting to five, then exhale while counting to five. Breathe in slowly through your nose, letting your stomach expand. Then breathe out through your mouth while you contract your stomach muscles.
Focus on the positive. If you’re hiding your feelings from your crush, you have a reason for doing so. Maybe you’re shy or just not ready yet. Maybe your crush already has a significant other. Whatever that reason is, don’t allow it to affect you negatively. Instead of worrying about things you can’t control, focus on things that make you happy. Whenever your crush enters your thoughts, try humming your favorite song or thinking back on a happy memory. Call a friend or watch a funny video. It doesn’t matter what you choose to focus on, as long as it brings you joy. Some examples are your pet, the scent of a flower, the memory of your last birthday party, and other happy memories.
Avoid negative self-talk. When you have a negative thought, try to immediately replace it with a positive one. For instance, you might think, “He’s much more popular than me. He would never like me back.” Try to immediately counter this with something positive. You could think, “But I’m popular, too. I have lots of friends and other people have had crushes on me.” Maybe you’re having thoughts like, “I can’t believe I have a crush on my best friend’s boyfriend. They’re going to figure it out and I’ll lose both of them.” Change that to, “Okay, so I think he’s cute. Big deal! I’m not the first girl in the world to have this feeling. Crushes are normal and this will pass.” Maybe you’re surprised by who you have a crush on. Maybe you thought you liked guys, but now you have a crush on a girl, or vice versa. This is not a bad thing! You have no reason to feel shame or think about yourself negatively.
Being Subtle
Avoid too much eye contact. The eyes can communicate a lot of things without you having to say a word. Sometimes that’s good a thing! If you want to hide your feelings from a crush, however, eye contact probably isn’t going to help. Try to avoid excessive eye contact with that person, since it might give your feelings away. You don’t have to avert your eyes from someone’s gaze all of the time. Doing that may end up communicating something negative, like you’re embarrassed or not confident in yourself. Excessive eye contact is what you want to avoid. For instance, if you catch yourself staring, focus on something else.
Unfollow their social media accounts. If you find yourself spending too much time scrolling through your crush’s online profiles, consider unfollowing them Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr – at least temporarily. Use Facebook’s privacy settings to block their updates from showing up in your feed. Otherwise, you may end up “liking” too many of their posts and pictures, or leaving comments that will make your feelings for them obvious. Doing this will also help you stop obsessing over your crush and prevent you from seeing things you don’t want to see, like pictures of your crush with their significant other.
Limit your interactions. You probably know exactly where your crush tends to hang out. Always being around at those places might make your feelings very obvious to your crush. Whenever possible, limit how much time you spend in those places. You may want to avoid them entirely, at least until the crush passes. You shouldn’t feel like a place is off-limits to you forever because of your crush, but if you truly want to hide your feelings from them, avoid their favorite hang-outs for a while.
Avoid unnecessary physical contact. It can be tempting to “accidentally” brush up against your crush. You might find yourself inventing reasons for the two of you to touch. Don’t worry, this is a normal thing to do! However, touch is a very communicative thing. Unnecessary physical contact might make your feelings for your crush very obvious. Try to give them plenty of personal space. If you are always standing a little too close to them, your crush will start to pick up on that. They might even get uncomfortable. Putting physical space between the two of you will help you keep your feelings private.
Talking to Your Crush
Speak in a calm voice. Whenever you have to talk to your crush, keep your voice controlled and your tone normal. Being nervous causes a lot of people to speed up their speech, so focus on talking slowly and evenly. Keep your voice light and speak to them directly. If you need to, practice speaking calmly before you have to be around your crush. Work on a calm tone of voice.
Have a few topics in mind to talk about. Being anxious when you're talking to someone can sometimes make you feel like your mind has gone blank. Awkward silence might set in, which will definitely make your crush wonder what's going on. When you know you'll have to talk to your crush, prepare a few topics ahead of time. Have a few questions ready to ask your crush as well in case the conversation gets stalled. You could talk about things like shared classes, a new movie, music, extracurricular activities, or an upcoming school event. Prepare questions like, "So have you started your paper for history class yet?" and "Did you write down the homework from 3rd period?"
Smile and act natural. Smiling is an easy way to make you appear calmer and more confident to other people. If your crush is a friend that you have to be around fairly often, strive to act as normal as possible when you're together. Stick to your usual topics of conversation and your typical activities. Try to avoid nervous twitching and fiddling with things unnecessarily. Stand up straight and keep your body language positive.
Shifting Your Focus
Distract yourself. If your crush is around and you start feeling overwhelmed, force yourself to pay attention to something else. Get out your class notes and study for an upcoming exam. Read a book. Talk to a friend. If you’re in class, focus on your teacher’s lecture. If you’re not in class, call/text a friend or play a game. Even if you end up staring blankly at a page and not reading a word, it will still help you keep your feelings private and under control. Reader Poll: We asked 501 wikiHow readers who’ve struggled to cope with a crush, and only 6% have had luck with confiding in a trusted friend or mentor for support. [Take Poll] So, while this may not be a great strategy according to our readers, you can try focusing on school work or picking up a hobby.
Find a different way to express your emotions. Repressing feelings for a crush can be really hard. If you find another outlet for your emotions, it can help you cope with them better. Lots of people find that journaling helps them sort out their feelings. You could also try a creative activity, like painting or writing a song. Physical activities can also help you deal with emotions. Go for a run or try a new sport.
Try a new hobby. When you’re busy learning something new and interesting, your crush might not seem like such a big deal anymore. Trying something new will help you focus on something else. Try to immerse yourself in things that will get you out of the house and around other people. When you find yourself thinking about your crush, actively engage your mind with something else.
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