The guy who makes my bagels at Espresso Royale recently asked me for my name. Thinking he needed it to label the wrapping or creatively write it in sprouts, I gave it to him. Unfortunately, he was not asking me for bagel purposes. “I see you in here every day and I always wondered your name. My name’s Brad.” he said. Crap. I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Forget the bagel,” I said. I walked out, leaving my breakfast and now ex-lover alone and unclaimed.

This happens to me every time I fall in love with someone from a distance. Last month’s prospect was the tall, dark and scruffy boy that never seemed to leave the counter at Boston University’s favorite pretentious coffee shop, Espresso Royale. He would sexily spread Toffutti as I made eyes at him from the couch. Once, I bumped into his right shoulder and he smelled of sultry cigarette smoke and Yerba mate. I was hooked. Every step he took made me fall deeper into lust with this bearded, wild-haired barista, and yet he didn’t know I existed.

But now he knows my name, and the fun is completely gone. What am I supposed to do now? Make conversation with him? Let him ask me out? Break up with him when I realize he has no personality? That sounds horrible. Batting my eyelashes at him was way more fun than any of that stuff. And I got to eat a bagel every time I practiced my silent flirting skills on him.

I fall in love with people who have no idea who I am more often than you think. I love falling for unnamed hotties. There is no way I can get through my day without the hope that my from-a-distance crush will turn the corner and we will silently fall in love while walking in opposite directions.

I spend months being seduced by a boy’s external qualities and fantasizing about us playing with each other’s hair in the Common and listening to Coltrane, only to lose interest when he discovers my existence and hits on me. It would be acting like a normal person to be excited when your at-a-distance lover acknowledges your presence, especially in a solicitation for romance, but sadly I lack that quality. I’m beginning to think I’ve lost my touch for being in love with people from afar, because I keep meeting them, and they keep liking me.

For instance, in high school I was head over heels for Ryan: long blonde hair, icy blue eyes, hemp jewelry and the personality of a paper bag. Every morning he got up early to go surfing and came back in time to go to school. I spent my entire first period biology class smelling the salt on the back of his head. I thought he never knew, until last summer when I saw him at a bar and he asked me out. “What? You know who I am?” I asked. He explained that he had a crush on me all throughout high school, and wanted to take me on a date now that we were in college. Great. Now every single one of my high school memories is ruined because the boy I was in love with actually knew I existed. He also probably knew I smelled the back of his head everyday and thought it was hot. Gross.

It’s not that I fall in love with these boys hoping they’ll never find out I’m stalking them. I have elaborate fantasies and high hopes for surprise marriage proposals for the extent of our unspoken love affair. It’s just that the minute they acknowledge me I lose interest, and then I have to break their hearts.

Every Wednesday last year I would spend about four to five hours in the Warren Towers computer lab surfing CollegeHumor.com and writing emails to my grandparents just so I could be around the very exotic-looking clerk that put paper in the printer. He was half-Asian, half-Brazilian or half-Latino, half-Brad Pitt or something, and I was in love. I would constantly go on Paint and draw pink hearts with writing that said, “2: Exotic Boy, Love, Secret Admirer in Warren Towers computer lab.” They would pile up in the printer for him to look at later. Eventually, the sexual tension was so thick and I had used so much paper that he felt that he had to sweep me off my feet. He approached me and I quickly minimized the game of solitaire I was playing. “Are you shansa?” he asked, holding up one of my many printed document cover sheets. My eyes met his. In them I saw snuggling, nights of watching bad movies and a white picket fence. “Can you pick up all of your papers please?” He said and smiled. As I collected my love notes I realized things would never work out with us. I can’t be with a guy who doesn’t appreciate my art. I had to break up with him and still can’t go into the computer lab to this day.

I’m not a relationship phobe. I have relationships all the time. Relationships are great. It’s just more fun knowing that if you brush your hair in the morning, the man of your dreams might notice its shine. Boyfriends don’t notice these things, but at-a-distance lovers just might catch the gleam in the corner of their eyes. For me to be in a relationship, my man just has to know that I’ll always be in love with someone from afar who at any given point will fall in love with me and take me to Paris.

Sarah Shanfield, a junior in the College of Communication, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at [email protected].