If you DO tell them, do it respectfully and without expectations.

One day, while having lunch with Dreamboat McLonghair, I stammered out “I’m pretty into you, no pressure or anything.” He was very cool about it, but also uninterested in me that way. We just laughed and kept eating our cafeteria food. Telling him didn’t result in a boyfriend or even a summer fling, but it did help me get over the stultifying, bad poetry-inducing crush I’d been harboring for years. Putting it out there helped me get it out of my system. Eventually, <3<3Dreamboat McLonghair<3<3 turned back into just Tom, a great friend.

While “I’m pretty into you, no pressure or anything,” was in the right spirit, it was maybe not the most eloquent declaration of a crush. I’ve always found it’s hard to get a read on a person until you’re hanging out alone. It’s a difficult move, because you want to express your feelings without an implied “now your turn.” Why not try a quick, simple, “I’ve been hesitant to tell you because I don’t want you to feel like you have to say or do anything about this, but I just wanted to let you know that I think you’re great, and I have a bit of a crush on you,” or whatever variation feels right to you? It’s going to be a slightly awkward moment no matter what, but I promise that saying it is the hardest part.

Your hopes and dreams of friendship-turned-romance are YOURS, and your friend isn’t obligated to return them. Your feelings might be coming from a wonderful place, but if they’re not reciprocated, that’s not your friend’s fault (Gale Hawthorne, please take note). Putting yourself out there is great and brave, but needs to come from a place of zero expectation and 100 percent respect for your pal and their right to their own feelings. If things are a bit weird between you guys at first, that’s OK. Giving your friend space to figure out their feelings also gives you a little break to check in with yourself about your own feelings and/or focus on something else for a bit. Maybe cool it with the texting all the time for a few days, or immerse yourself in a hobby or your family life, then send a check-in message a little later seeing what’s up with them in a general sense.

After all, you have a crush on them—you’re not asking them to marry you. Shifting feelings and moods and interests and vibes are part of any human interaction. It’s easier to get comfortable with that now than to freak out about how your pal took the news. Even if they react as badly as possible, they likely won’t feel that way forever either. People change all the time. So, will spilling the beans change your friendship? Sure! But will it ruin it? Ugh, no. (Gale Hawthorne, I am speaking directly to you, now and always.)

You don’t have to date someone for your mutual love to be real.

The toxic idea of the “friendzone”—that fictional alternative to dating that is really just called FRIENDSHIP—and the ubiquitous Hollywood narrative that all close friends are one romantic plotline away from true love (think When Harry Met Sally, Friends With Benefits, Reality Bites, etc.) suggest that sexual or romantic love turns a friendship from a relationship that’s just kinda OK to something Important and Meaningful. This privileges romantic relationships over friendships in a way that anyone (see: Swift, Taylor and Kloss, Karlie) could tell you is ridiculous: Friendship rules.

True, deep, long-lasting love for another person doesn’t have to be qualified as romantic to be real. Some friendships even skirt the line! Look at B.J. Novak and Mindy Kaling! The writing partners and co-stars on The Office dated a few years ago and have stayed very close friends since. Like, “tender acknowledgements in each other’s books” close. It’s complicated, it’s special, and, in his own words, B.J. “wouldn’t trade it for the world.” For Mindy’s part, as she put it in an Instagram comment (this is important friendship journalism and research): “We are more than bffs and different than bf and gf! I know it’s weird.” More than friends doesn’t need to be dating. It can just be, like, turbo-friends, and that’s real love, too.

Get cozy in the gray area, aka life.

What’s the difference between wanting to be close friends with someone and having a crush on them? Both impulses manifest in similar ways and come from a very similar place. This is why so many friendships turn into crushes, I think. My first boyfriend and I were lunch buddies after drama class for months, cracking each other up and fighting over stolen cheese fries, before we got all moon-y eyed and made out one February evening, following this conversation:

HIM: Whoa, it’s 2 AM? You’ve been at my house forever. We hang out all the time.
ME: Well, you’re a great friend. I really like you.
HIM: I really like you. [Cue smooching]

Sometimes your friendships might veer into a Deep Crush Zone, and sometimes they might go all the way back to the Realm of “Maybe We Need Some Space,” but no one’s feelings about anything are exactly the same forever. It can be fun to feel a new tension take over a previously platonic friendship, and it’s also fine to watch that tension ebb away—to feel the electricity you felt sharing a blanket while watching Netflix replaced by a strong urge to Dutch Oven them with said blanket. No interaction is more valuable than another—no connection more real because it ends in a kiss rather than a weirdly long hug or a handshake you invented (this is an open call for Rookie readers to please teach me all their most complicated secret handshakes—I live for this biz).

Feelings for, and attractions to, many people in your life will ebb and flow over time. Sometimes you should act on them and won’t, and sometimes you shouldn’t and you will, and vice versa. A good crush, like a good friend, is someone you want to be around—someone who makes you laugh and think and feel good and be brave. If you’re feeling hesitant, imagine how it would feel to know someone close to you felt those things about you. Even if you weren’t romantically interested in them, I bet it’d be really, really good to hear—as a friend. ♦

Monica Heisey is a writer and comedian from Toronto. Her first book, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better, is forthcoming in spring 2015.