The Advice Column II

369

Advice Request
This person is receiving mixed signals from their crush.

Answered Submission
Hello there!

Don't apologize! You're not bothering us. We are always happy to help you and other requesters, so if you still have any problems that you would like us to help you with, feel free to send them in. Now, moving on to your requests.

First of all, I want to talk about your stress with the play and how to feel like you're actually helping. You wrote the script, rewrote it to fit the mould that they wanted, and then you cut it down to be a little short. I write in my free time—I know how hard it is to cut that much of your writing. It must have taken a lot of compromise on your part, but you still had to do it anyway, and you succeeded in doing it. Still to your dismay, at last, the script is just used as a skeleton. Then, they asked you to write the music. You've done it four to five times already, but in the end, they picked someone else to do it.

Trust me, you're useful. Your scripts and all your efforts might seem to be a waste because none of it made it into the final play. It's understandable that you would feel down by it, as your effort did not seem to make anyone happy, and you feel as though you're just doing everything for nothing. But trust me, your effort has actually done something. Without your primary scripts, they would probably have no idea where the play was really going. It might seem to be a small role, but without the first steps, there would never be the second and third ones.

In the writing world, we cooperate with a team. This is how some things go. We are handed some work to do, and we do it a certain way, but the rest of the team might not agree with us. Our vision of something does not always match other people's visions. It is no one's fault to have different visions, and that does not make anyone useless.

Personally, I really think the rest of your team should handle everything better. From the way you said it, no matter how you do it, your work never seems to satisfy everyone perfectly. I cannot really say how things go in your group without me being there, but it feels like there's no definitive way that they really want things to go. This resulted in making you do all the hard work to make it work. I don't really want to say this, but it makes me feel like you're being exploited. The guy probably knows that you still like him and that you would do anything, so he asked you to write the music. But then, the music that you wrote did not fit the vision that he wanted, so he asked for someone else to do it instead. So know that you're not useless and that you're helping.

Next, what do you do about him? From what I can see right now, I legitimately think that you deserve better. You are a great person, and you pour out everything to try your best to make him happy. He seems to be giving you mixed signals and is actually making you feel like worthless trash on certain days. I don't know if he's just naturally an oblivious guy to make someone feel worthless like that, but I'll say, for closure, you should try to figure out his feelings one last time and see whether he actually realizes that he's been hurting you all this time. My advice would be for you to move on from him. You deserve better.

What happens if you can't get over him? You will. It won't be easy, especially now that you're still hanging out with him due to the play, but you will move on one day. As cheesy as it is, time heals all wounds. I know that there will be days where you'll be drawn back to him because, after all, there must be a reason why you like him in the first place, but I suggest you to remind yourself if you really think it's fair for him to treat you like that. If your friend had a crush on someone who did that to her/him, what would you say to her?

And last of all, yes, it is close to Valentine's Day, and being in your current situation, I understand why you would feel depressed about it. Right now, since you've been feeling down about yourself due to a lot of things, my advice would be for you to focus all on yourself.

I've been very cheesy today, but why not be cheesy all the way through the end? Love yourself because you deserve it as much as anyone else. Make this season everything about you. Buy flowers for yourself. Buy chocolates for yourself. List out things that you like about yourself. Do things that you like. Make yourself feel better about who you are because you really do deserve it. It may hurt right now, since it is never easy to move on from someone, but one day, you can look back and say you made it. Then you'll understand why things go the way that they do.

I hope this helps, and I wish you the best of luck with everything.

With an extra dose of love,

The Advice Column Team