I’m in love with Harry Styles, the same man from One Direction who looks exactly like my brother. Awkward, much? That's an understatement.

Last summer, when my family was visiting New York City from Ohio, we spent a particular evening at the theater. While we laughed our way through Bullets Over Broadway, I had no idea my world would be flipped upside down after leaving the show.

As my siblings, parents, and cousins shuffled out onto West 44th Street, we were startled by a group of teenage girls, no older than 14, laughing and stuttering over the same two words: Harry Styles.

This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be here.

See also: The 20 best reactions ever to Zayn leaving One Direction

My heart began to race and I scrambled to come up with the perfect thing to say to Harry. Get a grip, Gabby, I thought. I was already an anomaly: a 22-year old woman whose demeanor and resume portrayed a mature adult but whose iTunes library mirrored most tweens.

I cleared the foggy thoughts in my head, trying not to waste precious time that could be better spent laughing on the tour bus with him and the other 1D boys, an obvious end result to our impending encounter.

In front of me, the gaggle of girls was crowding. Then I realized something: They were closing in around my little brother, Jori.

Was this a joke? My friends had made off-hand comments that my 20-year-old brother resembled Harry, but these complete strangers didn't actually think he was the real deal, did they?

My brother stood frozen as girls and young women requested photos and selfies. After confirming he indeed wasn’t the 21-year old pop star, the girls still didn’t flinch, confident their friends back home wouldn’t know the difference, anyway.

I stood there, frozen, with an expression not unlike the emoji with a straight-line mouth and big, puzzled eyes.

As the weeks passed by, my brother’s charm and flowing hair did nothing but assist in the delusion.

How is a grown-ass woman supposed to live her life in One Direction bliss while her little brother gets mistaken for her boy-band heartthrob?

It’s important to mention that I don’t see the resemblance and neither does he, which makes this whole thing more inconvenient.

Still, I could be front row at every concert if I had a dollar for every time someone said to me, “It’s, like, weird, right? You love Harry Styles and your brother looks just like him?” Well, it wasn’t weird until you said that.

If I get one more Snapchat from my college friends in response to a man-bun screenshot of my brother, I may very well explode.

My whole family plays into the idea, too. They are constantly hashtagging #harrystyles on their pictures of him and calling him Harry when he’s in skinny jeans and a black tee. I get texts from him on the daily, describing his brushes with mistaken identity at school.

During one instance, a car of girls actually followed him to class trying to figure out if it was Harold Edward himself, a situation that makes me question the logic and integrity of Northeast Ohio University students.

To be honest, I’ve entertained the idea from time to time, captioning my own Instagrams of me and him with One Direction wit, sending my friends videos of my brother belting out a verse of “You and I,” and joining in on the banter around the dinner table during my trips home. But it has never felt organic.

I refuse to believe my baby brother looks like the young man who sang me through late night study sessions for four years in college. My baby bro of 20 years does not resemble the British babe that dated Taylor Swift. He can’t, I tell myself again and again.

A year after the incident outside the theater, my affection for One Direction remains. I still have a ticket to sit on the floor at their concert in August, and my brother still yells at me when I play the now four-member band (ughhh, Zayn!) in the car for too long.

When it comes to my brother’s supposed likeness, I’m not in denial. In fact, I think this whole thing has made me love 1D even more, as I’ve searched for additional reasons that contradict people’s claims. For starters, my brother can’t carry a tune in a basket, and that’s a big enough difference for me. He also doesn’t have any majestic tattoos that make him more irresistible than any boy I’ve ever met in my waking life.

It does make me a little worried, though. As my brother’s luscious locks get longer every passing day, the texts and teases from friends have been increasing at an exponential rate.

Harry Styles' doppleganger or not, I can assure you of one thing: My brother will not be joining me for any trips out east this summer. I don’t think I can handle another run-in with Southampton’s finest (i.e. its bronzed 55-year old women) stopping at our lunch table for an autograph and a picture because “their granddaughters will be so jealous.”

Can’t I eat my kale and beet salad without someone trying to get TMZ all up in my face? At least wait until I’ve finished my mimosa — though, there won't be too many. Because maybe — just maybe — I will then start seeing him as Harry, too. Now that would be awkward.