This is Valentine’s week and it’s got me thinking about crushes. Crushes are wonderful yet horrible things. You like someone so much that it brightens your day to see them but it ruins it if they happen to ignore you. My last real crush was on a boy at school named Jason.* He was cute, smart, and of course he made me laugh: in short, he was a classic triple threat to any girl in the 8th grade. Back in the day I thought the crush was mutual. At the time school was coming to an end and it seemed like everyone was confessing their undying love to someone. One night we were chatting on AIM (the text message of the early 2000s) about our homework and it finally came out: he told me he had a really big crush…on my best friend.
That night I remember moping around the house, crying like a little girl who lost her puppy. I’m a firm believer that the reason they call them ‘crushes’ is because someone usually gets crushed. I had been crushed. Jason was probably my last real ‘crush’ because when I got to high school, I started to date more and found that guys were more willing to make the first move. The concept of dating (hopefully) matures as you mature so luckily there’s less crushing as you get older. Besides, the inevitable celebrity crush which we all know never ends well.
Years later when I was about seventeen, I ran into Jason at my pool where he was lifeguarding. We caught up and began to reminisce about our middle school days. At the end of the conversation, he asked me out. I said no because I had a boyfriend, but I’ll never forget his response. He laughed and said, “Okay, I understand. It’s a shame; I had such a crush on you in middle school.” He turned and walked away leaving me with my jaw dropped.
Now the point of all that is not to say that crushes always come full circle or that if you wait long enough you’ll get the response you always wanted. I definitely don’t recommend hanging around your pool every summer hoping to run into your former crush. The point is a crush is an exciting thing that often leads to nothing because most of the time people are too afraid to admit to them. Crushes are fun for a moment, then maybe a tiny bit heartbreaking, but they eventually go away.
Who knows if Jason really did like my best friend back then or if he really liked me, but didn’t want to admit it. Either way, it was just a crush. If two people can’t admit their feelings at the same time then they’re probably not meant to be together. The people that end up actually meaning something to you are the people who aren’t afraid to tell you how they feel. The crush itself is just a fleeting feeling, but it’s the relationship that could come out of it that actually counts. So if your feelings are really strong then maybe you should consider being honest. You might get crushed, but it also might turn into something great.
When you find yourself crushing, enjoy that rush of adrenaline you get when you see them and the excitement you feel when they smile at you. Try being open with your crush and maybe you’ll find out they like you back. But if you’re like me and your crush winds up leaving you crushed, remember that what you’re feeling will go away soon enough. While you’re waiting, you’ll always have ice cream.
*names have been changed!