What is it, to be jealous? Is it that little green monster sitting on your shoulder, or the snarling beast in the pit of your stomach? Is it a feeling of violent hatred, or a quiet longing? Could it be something different altogether?

I firmly believe there is the ugly, more defined jealousy- there was once a boy sat across from me in Math and sketched beautiful flowers for a girl who would not ever appreciate them. However, there is also a quiet, intense pain that could also be called by the same name: when a different boy hugged a different girl all the time, and had never hugged me. When he did not even like her (or at least had not bothered to tell me his feelings) until he asked her out. When he kissed her and I was the first he told, and he could not even realize I was not happy about it.

The thing is, with the first boy, I was jealous because I liked him a little bit, but it was less situational and personal and more because I wished someone would like me and do sweet things for me like he did for her. The situation with the second boy, however, was very close to heart and more than a little painful. He was one of my very best friends, and, since we have known each other, neither of us has had a boyfriend/girlfriend. That’s how it was, and that’s how I liked it. Oh, sure, he told me about multiple girls that he really liked, but it was always the joke that we were married. The lunch hour came, though, when his friend - not him, but his friend - approached my table to inform me that my ‘husband’ and I were now divorced, because he had just asked some girl out. You know, that hurt. Not because I liked him, but because he was mine. My best guy friend, maybe even my best friend at all, my husband; mine. Days later, he told me he had kissed her. We were texting about homework and he randomly replied, “Yeah I kissed her”. No name; we both knew exactly who he was talking about. We talked about his first kiss that he had shared with her- someone completely unworthy of him who had stolen his very first that someday might have been mine, if I had wanted it. This thievery was not enough: unintentionally adding insult to injury, he had said there were fireworks in her lips. He had said she was good at it. No, it was not her first; of course not. To top it all off, he had left me behind. I had not had my first, had not had a boyfriend (through my own choice, but I had never been asked, either), and felt silly trying to talk to him like I had any sort of experience other than from romance novels. I felt silly trying to find out through his limited-word texts what it was all like.

Sometimes, I got mad at him about everything. How could he not have realized that I did not like her, did not think she deserved him, and thought he was wasting himself on her? How could he have supposedly liked her so much when he would not even show it, except to her? When our friends talked bad about her and I chewed him out for not defending her, all he ever said was that he did not want to argue with us. Was he so wimpy, or was he afraid he would end up agreeing with everything they had said? He sat with her at lunch, he hugged her, he had kissed her; did he even like her? Maybe he just liked having a girlfriend- having someone tell him what a special boy he was. He was not like that... Was he? Is it kind of like the doubts I have now of some of my past crushes, wondering if I really liked them or if they were just someone to use as a placeholder until I could find my next real crush?

I think to find jealousy in yourself, you have to be able to be honest with yourself. Perhaps I was not honest enough, and that is why I could never figure out what my feelings were named. Maybe I did like him and I would not let myself know it. Maybe liking him was revolting to me and I equally hid my feelings from myself. It is good to have him as a best friend, but that did not mean it was not tough when I saw him with her. They are finally broken up now, but it came from his side. If she had been the one to do it and had broken his heart, she would have had a chat with the girl who considers him her best friend.