Picture you and your crush spending the day together: taking a walk, watching a movie and eating dinner. Everything is going wonderfully and then they say it: “You’re such a good friend.”

In that moment, everything shatters.

In that moment they have sent you from your epiphany of joy to the bowels of your loathing.

You have been shot down.

For many of us, there aren’t too many more painful ways of being rejected; any other rejection would be quick and over with.

Friend-zoning draws out the pain, feeds and poisons it with hope, and lasts forever. Unless something changes or you get lucky, you cannot get out of the friend zone.

Do not wait it out; that person has put you on a list of “emotional crutches.”

You can’t react negatively to it because it’s a positive outcome; it’s just not positive enough. It just keeps getting exponentially worse until you either date someone else or destroy the friendship.

In your mind, friend-zoning is one of the worst things that can be done to a person. It’s one of the most emotionally compromising things a young adult can go through.

In the grand scheme of things, though, is it really that bad? In a way you are denying the reality of their emotions, believing the world works in a closed circuit and nothing outside your mind is authentic.

The worst part is the true nature of friend-zoning: it isn’t a bad thing. It’s a matter of perspective: live and let live.

The sour feelings are going to last, but only in the short term; the long term would be how you handle your friendship. It can be painful to be the only one with the feelings.

The best thing would be to let those feelings out, undo the knot in your gut and tell them how you feel. The pain doesn’t disappear overnight, but it sets you up to get it out of your system and adjust to reality.

If you’re constantly stuck in the friend zone at every turn then you need to change how you seek relationships.

You should analyze what you really want, what kind of people you like and be willing to try new paths.

Unless you’re the one friend-zoning, which means you’re an evil sociopath.

How dare you deny their feelings for you and lack reciprocating emotions?

What kind of monster are you? A puppy-eating kind?