Crush
There's love, and then there's something else: The crush. The overwhelming feeling generated by an object of desire. This month, Alma wonders why we crush, and whether it's a good thing.
Words by Alma Khasawnih.
MEETING SOMEONE FOR THE first time: feeling her eyes on your face as you talk to someone else. You can’t remember her name, can hardly look in her direction for fear of catching her eye. The anxiety, the sweating, the increased heart rate. The feeling that you have a secret that is all your own. The rush of the immediate crush is running through your veins. Then the night is over. Within a week, she fades out of your mind, out of your memory.
Another morning arrives. You’re in your car at the traffic light, a man is crossing the street in front of your car and you instantaneously fall in love. You blush, lower your eyes, wonder if your hair looks good; your heart pounding in your chest. You look up and he’s gone around the corner. The light turns green and you start thinking about your chores, who to see, what book to read. The man and the crush never existed.
There are crushes that last two seconds; others last past a kiss, some for an incredible few days, and then there are ones that last a lifetime. I’ve had a crush on one particular guy since 2002. I don’t see him often, but when I do I regress to being nine years old. The pitch of my voice ascends an octave and I become extra-hyper. I blush, and my palms go wet. I drown in his eyes. Everyone knows I have a crush on him; I’m sure he does too.
In college, my classmate Erin had various crushes: the boy with the bicycle, the boy wearing black thick-rimmed glasses, the boy who rode the elevator around 10:30 Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We knew and talked about them, got excited about spotting them on campus, reported to Erin what we’d seen. We had no idea who they were.
I was talking to my sister about crushes and she said that sometimes she feels that people have potential love waiting inside them, similar to potential energy in physics. The energy exists in objects, and all it takes is a little tap, a slight change in equilibrium, to generate motion. The love is inside us as we sit scanning the world, observing it, being part of it. Suddenly we spot someone who disturbs our equilibrium, and love causes us to move towards her or him.
I like this idea: we simply have the love within us, steady, waiting to be let out to play in the world with others’ loves. This thought gives me comfort that I need not seek love; I already have it. And the frequency with which I develop crushes on people reassures me that I have an endless supply, waiting to be released!
Yet at the same time, the thought that there is love within me so desperately waiting to see or sense another individual that it bursts out of me without much control is sad. Is it normal to be so absolutely infatuated with the man crossing the street, and for these intense feelings to disappear with him around the corner? Why do we feel the anxiety of this gush of emotions if it happens naturally? The thought that we cannot wait to bestow our strongest affections onto others, even if momentarily, is a lonely one. Are we so lacking for love and affection that we are willing to give it to anyone?
Sometimes I feel that we live in such a violent, isolated, lonely world that it makes us inured to sharing our love with those who do not deserve it. Yet, simultaneously, I think that perhaps if we allowed the potential love inside us to be set free onto anyone that catches our infatuation, we would not feel so alone.
The truth is, I find crushes invigorating. They’re like a short, high dosage of aerobics: blood flowing, heart pumping, sweating. Energy. They are irrational and extremely intense. They are falling totally in love in one second, for a moment. Crushes make each day different than the one before and the one after. They come unexpectedly. They take over the mind to varying degrees.
And mostly, I’m happy to be delirious in infatuation. I look forward to my next crush, and I hope you have a crush for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Don’t worry; you have enough potential love for all of them. I even suspect that the more you let out, the more you’ll generate. So crush away.
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