And just like that, a name -- one I referred to often -- became an archetype, a trope, an all-purpose noun used by my college friends to talk about "that guy," the one who remains for us in some netherworld between friend and boyfriend, often for years.

I met mine, the original Jeremy, at summer camp in the Poconos at 14, playing pickup basketball by day and talking in the mess hall late into the night. Back home we lived only 30 minutes apart, but I didn't see him again until 11th grade, when we ran into each other at a Halloween party in a Lower Manhattan warehouse. [...]

Whenever I believed he was out of my life, I'd get a text or Facebook comment that would reel me back in.

And I wouldn't let me, either. His affection, however sporadic, always loomed like a promise. So I accepted his invitation, asking myself what I had to lose.

I lost a lot that weekend: A bet on the football game. Four pounds (from nerve-driven appetite loss). A pair of underwear. My innocence, apparently.

Naïvely, I had expected to gain clarity, to finally admit my feelings and ask if he felt the same. But I couldn't confess, couldn't probe. Periodically I opened my mouth to ask: "What are we doing? Who am I to you?" He stopped me with a smile, a wink or a handhold, gestures that persuaded me to shut my mouth or risk jeopardizing what we already had.

On the Saturday-night train back to Manhattan, I cried. Back in my dorm room, buried under the covers so my roommates wouldn't hear, I fell asleep with a wet pillow and puffy eyes.

The next morning I awoke to a string of texts from him: "You get back OK?" "Let's do it again soon :)"

And we did, meeting up for drinks in the city, spending the night at my place, neither of us daring to raise the subject of what we were doing or what we meant to each other. I kept telling myself I'd be fine.

And I was. I am.

But now, more than three years after our first kiss and more than a year after our first time, I'm still not over the possibility of him, the possibility of us. And he has no idea.

I'm told my generation will be remembered for our callous commitments and rudimentary romances. We hook up. We sext. We swipe right.

All the while, we avoid labels and try to bury our emotions. We aren't supposed to want anything serious; not now, anyway. But a void is created when we refrain from telling it like it is, from allowing ourselves to feel how we feel. And in that unoccupied space, we're dangerously free to create our own realities.