I warned you.

Last night’s episode of NYC Prep was, as Nora emailed at 2am, “a gem.” Many, many moleskin-note-jotting events occurred between our cast of pubescent (I know, but I just like that work) Manhattan tycoons. But as Brian complained last week, “an entire blog post on a tv show?!” — not quite my style. Instead I’ll cheap out with an entire post based on a storyline from a tv show.

If it is not at this point achingly obvious to you that the show’s blonde-Donna-Karen “Jessie” is in love with its sad-excuse-for-Chuck-Bass “PC” then you must be Jessie. He goes to Mexico with “the boy” as “Jessie’s Friend Zoe” amazingly notes (but PC denies) prompting Jessie to behave like he’s her fiance on his bachelor party weekend — or her child.

It is juvenile. It is annoying. It is more transparent than a perfectly groomed boy in too short swim trunks denying being bi by saying nooo, I am noot!” And yet it is something I have seen go down countless times in the adult world.

Blanket statement: if you are to the point of wondering if people realize you have a real thing for someone, they do. Ta-rust me.

While it’s never good/healthy/easy to deny your true feelings, we all have our reasons for wanting to hide certain affections. If that’s your situation I recommend NOT doing the following:

• Do NOT say, “oooh ________ would love this bar/song/plate of nachos…I wish he was here…”
• If you steal away to text _______, are found and asked, “who did you run away from Poker Face on the dance floor to text?!” – LIE.
• If possible, cover most of your face when talking on the phone to this person. This will help hide the “I am talking to the guy I have a huge crush on” faces you’re making.
• If you have “our thing” (you get Yogurtland every Tuesday night, you watch Conan together over the phone, you text him whenever you hear Build Me Up Buttercut) don’t tell anyone, ever.
• Never engage in the following conversation: “So, hey, do you think ________ is attractive? Because I can never really tell…I mean, I think he’s fine looking, but I guess we’re just too close for me to really see him as, you know, a guy.”
• Try to keep the wall-posting of inside jokes to a minimum.
• When you go out to dinner with a group of people keep your obvious jockying for position next to ________ in check.
• Never let this happen: Your Friend: “is that a guy’s shirt you’re wearing?” You: “Oh, haha, yeah, it’s _______’s, he left it at my apartment after we ordered in Thai and watched the Bourne Trilogy on a rainy day.”
• When playing Fuck, Chuck, or Marry NEVER chuck this person first with a line like, “well I obviously have to chuck _______ because I could never marry him…” This seems like a diversion tactic but it is not.
• And — and if you follow one piece of advice from this post make it this — if people say “wait, which _______?” Don’t you DARE say, “my ______.”

Of course, if that all seems impossible you could tell _______ how you feel — or, in the theme of the post, have one of your friends do it.