In the young adult drama Paper Towns (2015, USA), based on the novel by John Green, Quentin has had a crush on his next door neighbor Margo since he was eight years old and she moved into his neighborhood.

They became friends, but when she asked him out for a wild prank, he refused.

That might have been the end of their blossoming relationship.

As teenagers, they grow apart, and it is obvious that Quentin and Margo are totally different people.

She’s a wild one, and he’s conservative.

He still harbors a secret love for her, though. He would like to be part of her group. Alas.

When Margo wants to get even on her cheating boyfriend, she enters Quentin’s life again.

It escalates into one of Margo’s renowned disappearance acts. No one knows where she is. Quentin feels compelled to look, as if her escapade is her saying to Quentin, ‘find me’.

But is Quentin’s pursuit just going through a normal stage of growing up: getting over the adolescent crush?

Crushes. They may be painful for teenagers, and adults for that matter, especially when we discover the truth.

Maybe you are not soul mates from far apart with extra sensory ability to know one another’s thoughts because you are both in love. But you both may have been growing apart and the pursuant of a relationship just did not know that, yet.

What does someone do in such a love crush?

What happens if a crush ends badly? When hearts are broken? When vulnerabilities are opened, and life hurts and love hurts? To know the truth about a childhood crush must end well. If it does not, you may feel hurt.

Once reality sinks in, two people may have really grown apart, but the softest, beautiful, and gentle let down, is when the experience ends well and the journey is not in vain.

Some journeys are not in vain, even when expecting a different outcome. Seeking your object of desire, something better may be found instead.

This journey through seeking ‘love’ has really been a matter of maturing.

PG-13 profanity, sexual references, suggestive sexual material, violence—involving teens