Crushes: everyone gets them and understands the constant pain they cause. They give you all kinds of butterflies in your stomach, and your brain is always thinking about them and making up fictitious scenarios in which you two are a couple. Crushes don’t always work out though. More often than not, either the feelings aren’t reciprocated or you lose interest. However, these odds can be lessened if you learn how to properly act around your crush. These are some lessons that I’ve learned the hard way over the years.

1. Hugs should not last an obscene amount of time.

If you get lucky enough for your crush to hug you, don’t be weird about it. Hugs should last about three seconds. Do not, under any circumstances, maintain the hug for well over a minute. At the time, you won’t think it was weird, but a year later when you revisit those feelings, the awkwardly long hug will haunt you at every waking moment, and you’ll start analyzing the entire situation. Did you forget how to operate your arms? Did they think it was as weird then as you do now? Odds are they (hopefully) don’t even think about that hug, and if they do, it’s probably a good sign. However, that’s not a risk you want to take. Just release your crush after an appropriate amount of time to save yourself years of overthinking it.

2. For the love of everything holy stop calling them “dude” all of the time.

This policy extends to “bro” “bud” “chum” “matey” “dat boi” (or probably anything that you first heard on iFunny) or really anything that makes it sound like you see them as just another friend of yours. If your crush is female and you call her “bro,” be prepared to find a new crush, because she has lost interest. Being friend-zoned or bro-zoned, even if it wasn’t your intention, is a hard blow to recover from, and your crush isn’t going to like it.

3. Bringing up other potential romantic interests is not a thing that needs to happen.

I’m absolutely horrible at this one, probably because I never stop talking. Say you’re around Sam, and you really like Sam, but you keep telling Sam stories about Alex or texting Alex. Sam is going to think that you’re completely into Alex and not Sam. So guess who you aren’t getting with ... that’s right, Sam! Sam wants to talk about Sam, or maybe you, the weather, sports, whatever mutual interests you have ... but not potential competition.

4. Put your damn phone away.

I don’t mean to sound like your angsty grandfather who doesn’t understand how you know what your aunt is up to via some book of faces, but put the phone away and be a human for a bit. You want your crush to see you, not the Snapchat filter you put over your face, or even worse, the face you’re making to get that Snapchat filter. They don’t want to be talking in your ear while your entire focus is on tweeting about how much fun you’re having. Your friend Susan doesn’t need a live play-by-play of your night via text. Just put the phone in your pocket, purse, satchel, backpack, pack yak, or whatever it is you put your stuff in and focus on the people who are physically in the room with you, especially your crush.

5. Be yourself.

It's a cliche thing to say, but it’s true. You don’t want your crush to fall for someone else, even if that someone else is technically you. If they develop feelings for you because you like "League of Legends," when you actually just watched your favorite YouTubers play it once so you’d know some lingo, they're basically falling for someone completely different. When you’re with them, that’s what they’ll talk about and do. You will end up sitting on a chair in their room watching them watch a live steam of "League of Legends" while you nod along acting like you understand a damn thing that’s happening all while you wish you were literally anywhere else in the world. What kind of relationship is that? Let me tell you, it’s a fake one that you don’t want to be a part of. The same thing can be applied to pretending to like sports, pretending to be rich, acting like you like their friends, or basically pretending or faking anything. Just like what you like and be who you are, and if they don’t like you for that, then you deserve someone who does.

Those are some of the most important, but here’s a handful of other things you should not do:

-Throw a can of Crush soda at them while shouting “That’s you!”

-Tell them your Tumblr username

-Let them read your fan fiction

-Write them into your fan fiction

-Ask them to watch "Rubber," the movie about a tire that kills people, with you

-Tell them all about your government conspiracies

-Tell them about your past dreams of wrestling for the WWE

-Tase them

-Brag about your ability to fully recite Left Eye’s solo in TLC’s “Waterfalls”

-Name your future children, cats, dogs, chinchillas, and pygmy goat

-Find all of their old Facebook photos and judge them

-Mentally plan to leave the country and start fresh under a new name in case of rejection

-Bring up politics or religion or spoil "Game of Thrones"

So take these tips, learn from them, and maybe practice some of them. I wish all of you the best of luck in your future endeavors, and may your crushes forever reciprocate your feelings.