How do I describe a boy's stress over his feelings for a girl?

For context, in my storyline, there's a major subplot where my male OC Reilly is feeling all stressed out over his blossoming feelings for my female OC Amelia and he feels like he'll lose it (think of like the lyrics of SOS by Rihanna; that basically sums up how Reilly's feeling). Normally, Reilly's confident, outgoing and hardly breaks a sweat when it comes to the ladies. But this girl Amelia makes him feel a type of way. Reilly's realizing he's really liking this girl and can't stop thinking about her and he feels a little weird and stressed out. I've never really experienced any crushes or much sexual/romantic attraction yet, so I don't really know like how your body feels/react when you got a crush/falling for someone, like those feelings you get inside?, so I'm having some trouble. I'm not exactly sure how to describe how he's feeling or the feelings he gets inside when he's with Amelia.

 

Have you ever been on a rollercoaster? Or for that matter, have you ever driven down a hilly country road? You know that feeling of lightness you get in your belly as you go over the hills?

Imagine that, but in response not to a physical thing, but about your feelings toward somebody. That's what the classic phrase "butterflies in your stomach" refers to!

So to answer your question, you can describe it like the hills of a rollercoaster; it invokes the same type of physical feeling.

 

Yup to all the above lol.
I guess, more in this case, since he's feeling stressed over his feelings for this girl, at first when he's around her or with her, he probably gets that feeling inside that his tummy's all tied up in knots and his body feels warmer

 

Well, if you haven't experienced it yet, you're just gonna have to go with what you've read and seen in movies etc. Or research it as well as you can. You won't be able to write about it with the kind of authority you can when you're writing about your own experiences.

 

Good idea

 

He's not going to be able to stop thinking about her. He talks to his friends about her all the time. He stalks her on social media. He stares at her when in her presence. He blushes. Light-headed, he says the wrong thing. His heartbeat speeds up and his palms get sweaty. And of course those butterflies in his stomach flapping their wings.

 

And then he thinks about that for DAYS afterward, and assumes that she's thinking about it too and hates him for it when really she never gave it a second thought.

Crushes are fun emotional rollercoasters!

 

And causing a typhoon in Malaysia.

 

Oooh that's actually a good metaphor OP could use!

"The butterflies in my stomach were flapping their wings so hard I felt like they could start a hurricane"

 

He'll think he was such a dink and double his efforts to impress her

 

Funny thing is, this storyline takes place in the 2000s, particularly circa 2006-2007 so there isn't really social media yet lol

 

Facebook, Myspace, Friends Reunited.

 

Myspace.

Trust me, that was my childhood/early teen era, and EVERYONE had a Myspace account. If you wanna really be accurate to the times, and also have a great nostalgia throwback for people who lived through that time, look up Myspace.
It was a social media site almost like Facebook, except way cooler and with lots of personalization features. Hell, you could have an entire paragraph just describing how your character's Myspace page was set up. You can do a LOT of character building that way.
The most prominent feature of Myspace was the ability to select a song which would play when someone visits your profile. But there was so, so much more. Please look up old Myspace profiles and get ideas!

 

You didn't mention Reilly's age, but I am assuming he is a teenager. Teenage boys are very preoccupied with sex. This might be something you work into your story.

 

OP also didn't mention their own age, though, and their posts indicate they may be rather young, so... my advice to OP is to tread carefully with sexual subjects, and perhaps avoid them if you're entirely unfamiliar personally. Might be best to wait to write more mature content like that.

 

My dumbass completely forgot about MySpace

I can definitely give my character a MySpace page, that would be so interesting... See the selecting a song part would drive him crazy considering he's a huge fan of

Completely forgot about this... at the time I wrote that, I was only thinking about like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, etc.

They're supposed to be between 19-2o, so it's mostly mutual romantic feelings, probably sexual feelings later lol