Crushes are funny things – they come and they go, despite what we seem to think when we’re teenagers – but it turns out there are things that will make one evaporate at the drop of a hat.

The 15 things below are definitely a good (bad?) start.

15. It made me feel unimportant

Back in college I was seeing a girl casually. Whenever we’d text, she’d take hours to respond to any message. It wasn’t a big deal, since most of the time it was just chatting or setting plans for the following weekend or something. It was a little annoying because it’d take a full day or two to set up plans because of the slow responses, but whatever. I’m a bad texter so I can’t really judge someone for that.

But I started to notice that when we hung out together, she’d immediately respond back to any and every text she got. She had some loud song as the ringtone that played for like 15 seconds, and set it so that her camera LED would flash constantly while it rang. Totally obnoxious and made me really notice how often she texted. I casually asked her who she was texting one time and it was just some friend from school that had sent her a meme.

After that I realized it wasn’t going to work. Being a slow texter is fine. Constantly texting while hanging out was annoying, but not a dealbreaker (especially if we were just chilling at one of our houses). But the realization that this person who was glued to her phone but didn’t feel like it was a priority to respond back to my texts made me feel unimportant so I kinda just drifted away. We stayed friends because we shared the same group of friends and it wasn’t awkward or anything. I just stopped trying to do things with just the two of us.

14. He let it slip

He let it slip that he was cheating on his SO in getting together with me. Killed that crushy feeling dead.

13. What’s so funny?

She told me her future plans to essentially become a gold digger like her mother. When I laughed it off she couldn’t see what I thought was so funny.

12. Not in person

he wouldn’t talk to me in person for some reason

11. Right out the window

We were driving down the road and she threw a Starbucks cup right out the window. Gross.

Edit: thanks for the silver! Also, I was a passenger so I couldn’t kick her out, and I’m honestly not sure it was Starbucks—but it was easier than saying “paper coffee cup”. 🙂

10. He’d cut me off

He would ask me questions about myself, then cut me off in the middle of my answer to talk about himself.

9. He corrected me.

Not so much a crush, but we were in the initial sentences of the conversation getting to know each other. We were describing to one another what our jobs were. He corrected me on describing my job.. stopped right there, said it wasn’t going to work out and ended the conversation..

8. She thought it was flirty and cute

Poured lemonade on my head in the middle of a fireworks show, she thought it was flirty and cute.

7. The candle had blown out

I ran into an old crush a few years back who told me he was in to dog baiting. The candle had blown out a long time ago as far as my crush was concerned but that pretty much killed any intention I had of trying to restart our friendship.

6. The hell I will!

Crush comes to my house. I explain how I’m slowly remodeling it and my plans for my house.

She then starts telling me I shouldn’t and I should do it her way, and let her take it over and let her design, decorate, and do it all. The hell I will.

5. I pretended my parents were calling

I was casually dating a 19 year old guy when I was 18. He seemed totally normal until I met him at his house before a date and his mom asked him to take the garbage out before we left. He threw a fit that would embarrass most 3 year olds including crying, yelling at his mom, and punching the floor.

I pretended that my parents were calling and needed me to come home, blocked his number, and never saw him again.

4. Now’s the time!

Met a woman, thought she seemed cool. We went out to eat, she’s telling me about how she fell on financial hard times and moved back in with her parents. The way she described it, just sounded like she got unlucky, not that she did anything irresponsible. It happens. When the bill came I told her I’d pay. She said, “Thanks, I appreciate that, I’m trying to save my money right now.”

Me: “Sure, I understand, you want to get your own place again.”

Her: “No, actually I mean I’m trying to save up $500 for a tattoo I want to get.”

I’ve got nothing against spending money on tattoos, but when you’ve just spent a first date talking about the financial troubles you have, maybe now’s the time to start putting money away for necessities, not tattoos.

3. Not ok and not cool!

Said she would turn up on a date, then flaked. Told me she had been called into work urgently. I said ok that’s cool. Second time she flaked again said that she had to tutor someone. Which made no sense because would you not have that planned ?

2. Completely one sided

Went on a date with them and they didn’t ask me anything about myself.

It was completely one sided—like a job interview or something.

I’m a guy, by the way.

1. I didn’t want to take advantage

I went on two dates with a girl when I was in college.

She was wonderful but immediately wanted to be “official” and started drafting Instagram posts about “us”. She wanted to spend every day together and have sleep overs every night. it was so out of nowhere and we literally knew nothing about one another.

I tried to look past it but she asked me to be her first and I got uncomfortable. she seemed naive and I didn’t want to take advantage. I suggested we take things slow and she took offense. I cut things off and her reaction was super childish.

All of this in a 3 week period.

Sweet girl but the pacing was off.

The more you know!