Sunday 15 April 2012

Crushed by Crushes

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I didn't get into the whole “liking boys” business until I was about fourteen. While that might seem fairly early on to you, I felt like a total idiot prior to hitting that stage, as most of my female friends have already experienced the whole “gee, I like him so much!” drama and I wanted a piece of it. I found it utterly unfair that they got to sit in their beds surrounded by boxes of chocolate and tissues, weeping about the difficulty of their lives. But after finally developing romantic feelings for a fellow human being, I realised that it was a thing I could have easily done without and that all those boxes of chocolate and tissues were not signs of being mature, but merely depressed.

I've upgraded from chocolate to champagne (it makes a social occasion out of my pain, making it more acceptable to invite my friends over with the intent of ruining their evening by making them go through painstakingly detailed re-enactments of my incoherent thought processes), but I continue being crushed by my crushes. I thought that, having reached adulthood, I was somehow too old for it, but I could not be have been more wrong. I suppose you can never be too mature to be immature.


Having a crush on someone can go one of three ways. You either make your feelings known and get rejected or – in the presumably better case – not… Or - if you are at all like me - you sit in your lair, stalk them on Facebook and wait. Here is my manual to handling all three cases!*

Requited feelings

In case you found that the person you were secretly enamoured with likes you too, congratulations! You are about to commence a journey of unknown duration, during which you will become an unbearable mess of a human being, unable to speak about anything but your new amazing boy/girlfriend, kissing, plush toys and baby animals. Good luck to you and all your friends!

Unrequited love

If you get rejected, then all the fictitious scenarios of the two of you watching the sunset together (which you've no doubt spent countless hours perfecting in your head) disappear. You are reduced to a shadow of your former thirteen-year-old self, clutching a box of Kleenex in one hand and a KitKat in the other (using brand names, how annoyingly consumerist of me!), thinking that the whole world is against you. Well, here is my advice: revel in those moments! It might sound stupid, but please, enjoy it! How long have you been waiting for a good enough reason to perform a questionable voodoo ritual, not shave your legs for a week, throw dog poo at happy couples and stay up all night listening to James Carrington’s “Ache” on a loop with tears flowing down your cheeks? There’s a little Bridget Jones inside most of us, so go ahead and indulge in these precious moments of pathetic self-pity.

abcjndkHaven’t said a word

In case you’re still waiting for the “right moment” to tell them, let me just tell you that there is no such a thing and that you should take a leap of faith and just do it before somebody else does. Having said that, I am one of those people who have "as much charm as a dead slug" ("Hunger Games" reference #1) in the presence of their crush and who fully agree with the following Chandler Bing statement:



I am generally unable to control my - already underdeveloped - motor skills in the presence of the boys I like, which makes it extremely difficult for me to use the invaluable advice advertised by reliable sources like Cosmopolitan. Swinging my hips and flipping my hair back just do not seem like plausible options when I am at a constant risk of tripping over my own foot. And talking does not help the situation either, as I either stutter or continuously insult them. So I tend to avoid confrontation and usually just end up leading them to believe that I am blissfully unaware of their existence. Every once in a while I do initiate conversation, but as such bright moments usually occur as a byproduct of liquor-induced courage, I rarely manage to make a good impression. And then I whine about it to my friends and complain that my crush doesn't seem to notice me. So please just let what I just described act as a deterrent and go get 'em.

The thing with crushes is this though – they are just crushes. The odds are, you will survive. In fact, the odds are you will look back in a few months or even weeks, and realise how ridiculous your entire obsession was... Speaking of odds, "may the odds be ever in your favour!" - I have acquired an unhealthy obsession with "Hunger Games" and I magically seem to find a way to incorporate quotes from the book into my everyday vocabulary. This is it for my useless rant and I wish you a fabulous Sunday!

*Disclaimer: Do not expect my advice to actually help you solve anything. Please, I can’t even solve my own problems!

Images: unknown; "Longa é a noite" by Eric Guillemain, via noirfacade; "Brivido Caldo" by Adam Whitehead, via noirfacade

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