ADVICE COLUMN: Stop wishing, start doing

The first time I wrote a dating advice column, I advised college students to be single and enjoy the freedom in a time of personal growth.

I claimed you owe it to yourself to live and explore life unshackled before you settle down to raise a family or grow in your career.

Although I stand by that advice today, I have to take a second stab at this advice game after the last one’s results.

My last column hadn’t even been printed or delivered to the newspaper stands around campus yet, and I was already eating my words.

I left the office that Tuesday around 11 p.m. to find the girl I had been crushing on for three years sitting in my neighbor’s kitchen.

She told me how excited she was to read my column when it came out the following morning – the same column downplaying college relationships.

Although I was a little flustered, I pressed on and we began devising a plan to hook our mutual friends up that night. By the end of our conversation, she had spilled a three-year old secret that she had been reciprocating said crush.

Never in my 22 years of life would I have guessed that this girl – whom I believed was completely out of my league – would have had mutual feelings for me. Then again, I never tried to find out.

While I’m lucky enough to be dating that girl now, it wasn’t without learning a lesson from three years of being a coward.

That lesson: there is no such thing as “out of your league.”

Life is about taking chances, even when they seem monumental. While I don’t regret my first three years at Central Michigan Unversity, it’s unfortunate this relationship had to begin in her final semester as a student

If you’ve been crushing on someone this semester, grow a backbone and strike up a conversation. For all you know, they consider you out of their league and are waiting for you to make that first move.

If the worst thing that could happen is you being awkwardly friend-zoned or being shot down, I’d say it’s worth the risk.

There are always more fish in the sea if you fail, but the best relationships are born when both members feel they are the ones snagging the bigger fish.

Stop wishing and start doing, because there’s nothing worse than an old crush letting on that you had a chance but never took it. Except for maybe world hunger. World hunger is probably worse.