The crash
They are exciting. Full of potential. The peak of your attraction to someone. Ordinary things are magnified: I mean, look at the way his eyes crinkle when he laughs; His hands have such force on them. It’s a never-ending game called idolatry. To prove my point, how come all the things we tend to notice about people we like are positive: “Welcome to my pedestal, would you like me to take you?”
But the reality is that there is no reality within a crush. It is the space between what I want and what I think the other person is; if I approach someone from the place of being “in love” with them, I’m giving up my chance to really get to know who that person is and essentially rolling the dice on whether they’ll live up to my expectations. Some people get lucky that way, but I guess the odds are not in your favor. Most of us won’t meet a significant other acting on our crushes.
Let’s do a deconstruction lesson. As a verb, crush has a variety of meanings: 1. to squeeze, crush, or squeeze to insult, break, wrinkle, etc.; 2. to break or grind (rock, ore, etc.) into small particles; 3. to suffocate or subdue, especially by force; 4. to extract (juice, water, etc.) by pressing; 5. oppress hard; 6. to hug or squeeze tightly; 7. outright defeat or humiliate, as in an argument or by a cruel comment; 8. to the crowd; strong 9. be injured, broken or distorted by pressure. As a noun, crush means: 10. a dense crowd, especially at a social occasion; 11. the act of crushing; pressure; 12. a drink or pulp prepared by or as if crushing fruit: crushing orange; 13. a) a crush: she was in love with him; b) the person with whom she is in love. This whole series of definitions tends to leave a relatively bleak outlook. The wording hints, or rather blatantly conveys, that “smash” is oppressive.
Why the negative symbolism to describe something that starts out so nicely? One interpretation could be that it demonstrates the unequal weight of one force over another; of your expectations in another. Infatuation works this way. It is understood as one-sided and rooted in fantasy. Anyone who has seen “Fatal Attraction”, a movie that society and Hollywood tend to unearth any questionable love interest of a woman, or “Law & Order”, “CSI” or a variation of it, where (usually) male stalkers and similars are saved by one-way obsession, understand the implication when a “crush” turns an unpleasant corner. The message is clear: if you leave it unattended for too long (or, worse, if a crush takes over), you’re crazy. An apparently selfless act, shedding light on another person’s positive qualities, quickly reveals itself as narcissism.
However, it does not have to be all negative. What I’ve learned from my infatuation phase(s) is that it’s important to remember what my gut craves. Sometimes, I think I get lost in logic in the “list phase” (making a list of ideal qualities in a relationship) and focus too much on ordering off a menu instead of feeling my way. There is a memory of stimuli for particular senses that is locked up when we are hurt or disappointed, or simply because of the passage of time that we forget that it is there. Within that memory bank there are smells, tastes, sounds, reactions… that are familiar and therefore deserve my attention. Since many social sciences insist that attraction is based on two constants: proximity and similarity, these unconscious traits are what my yin looks for in her yang. Or is it the other way around?
Still, the point is to tap into the potential when you’re in love, not with who the other might be, but with who you are. This is where I think a lot of people get confused (including me, obviously): thinking that falling in love is all about the other person. And, in a way, it does, but only in the sense that they have appeared to remind me of what I desire, yearn for, what I instinctively respond to, despite any logical protest. This is very important, since we live in a society where we are told what we want, how we want it, and when to want it, every day. Instead of realizing that desire is internal and self-feeding, we believe (and have been taught that) it exists outside of us. Thus the subject of my desire becomes, through serious training and practice, the source of my desire. To put it another way, as one of my former mentors once said, “pedestals make coming back to reality even more difficult.”
One of my favorite lines in a movie is “The Family Stone,” where Luke Wilson’s character gives Sarah Jessica Parker’s character a social lesson in a booth at a bar: “You’ve got a weird flag. You just don’t wave it.” . “What are you a freak about? This is really where crushes get exciting. Why else would you have multiple crushes at the same time? Because, if attraction were based in reality, you’d have to take responsibility for all of them.” those feelings. That’s a lot of work for one person, let alone several. Perhaps those who are polyamory experts can write more about this, but for now, let’s just assume that most of us are monogamous in relationships. Crushes are like breadcrumbs: clues that take you back to your own “freak flag” and remind you of what you find attractive. It’s all fun and games at this stage, but nothing should be taken too seriously. If you realize that the person you like has more meaning (such as believing that he must feel the same way about you), it’s time to move on or move on.