Dear Bear: how to get over a crush, ex-friends at a wedding, and conflict

Hi guys! Happy Sunday :) Today Rishi and I talk about two Dear Bear questions and then chat about our conflict we’re facing in our lives.

The first question we answer (at 1:10):

At 1:10: Met a nice friend. Hung out with him a fair bit. Asked him if he saw me as more than a friend. He turned me down - he's half a year out of a serious relationship that ended for geographic/mutual reasons. We're still hanging out a lot, and I haven't been able to let go of my crush completely. How do you eviscerate a crush from your heart?

The second question we answer (at 9:30):

I’m going to a wedding this summer in Europe, where my ex-friend group will be attending. I left the group due to a “break-up” with a friend I was dating in the group (break-up in quotes because we were never officially together). I am having a lot of anxiety thinking about how awkward or left out I might feel at the wedding. I’ve even considered not going to the wedding. Any advice?

And then we talk about conflict at 21:40 :) Rishi says, I want to get into more fights. And that’s new for me.

Three books that we mention: Crush by Ada Calhoun, Zoo or Letters Not About Love by Victor Shklovsky, and Right Story, Wrong Story: Adventures in Indigenous Thinking by Tyson Yunkaporta.

Let me know what you guys think! And you can ask us more questions here.

Weekly recommendations

1. I’m finally reading Possession by A.S. Byatt and it is absolutely amazing. Trying to go slow and savor everything. The synopsis, for those of you who haven’t heard of it: "Possession traces the lives of a pair of young academics as they uncover a clandestine relationship between two long-dead Victorian poets. As they unearth their letters, journals, and poems, and track their movements from London to Yorkshire—from spiritualist séances to the fairy-haunted far west of Brittany—what emerges is an extraordinary counterpoint of passions and ideas.”