Don't have unrealistic hopes.

If you pull at strings, hold onto words from sentences that could (could being the operative word) have meaning behind them, imagine up magical looks between people, assume a certain number of kisses at the end of a text actually makes a difference, then you've got unrealistic hope. The kind that you hold on to for dear life just because don't realise that not letting it go is just going to hurt more in the long run, rather than having a little bump along the way. It's very rare that people enjoy hurting your feelings no matter what the circumstances, so they will leave you with false shreds of hope in order to make situations less awkward. You have to work out who these people are, how these false promises come across and how to decipher who is just trying not to have to deal with the mess they're leaving behind by getting your hopes up for something that may never happen. Once you do this, you still don't want to believe it. So you play pretend. Don't, it's not fun and it's not clever. You will just hurt more.