How to Crush Without Being Crushed

Earlier today, a friend of mine and I were chatting about my How to Crush project and she started asking some pretty good questions. So good, in fact, it ended up reading like a real interview. Thankfully, I was smart enough to save a copy of that conversation. Here’s the first part of it. (Thanks, Steph!)

You have been open about having not been in the dating game for a while now. so why should anyone take romantic advice from you?

It’s really not about romance. It’s about relationships. The most important one being the relationship with yourself. Romance–real and imagined–is just a tool to learn more about yourself… And by doing so, be better able to understand your interactions with others.

Are you okay with yourself?

I am very OK with myself. Which is why I can be happily single for nearly a decade.

Are you not okay with others? What i’m getting at is so what are you waiting for then?

I am very OK with others… which is why I have such a wonderful group of friends. What should I be waiting for? There’s nothing to be waiting for. I’m not really wanting anything, relationship-wise, right now.

Because…?

The only reasons I’d go out and get myself all tied up in a relationship now would be to:
1) Get more stories to tell or
2) Because I suddenly feel the need to.

So you’re not, like, anti-relationship or anything.

Oh, hell no! Relationships–romantic or otherwise–are fantastic things. They’re natural and human things. They help us define ourselves and help us grow.

But, just like many things that are natural and often helpful, they can be damaging, too. We’ve all seen people go through incredibly destructive relationships. We all know people who get into relatioships that everyone around them knows will be destructive… and yet, they are oblivious to that fact.

In this culture we are pushed to think that being in a relationship is the only way we can be happy– the only way we can be normal and sane. That’s just wrong. It’s not the only way to be happy. And it is just as normal to be happy being uninvolved.

Or, it would be if the external pressure would let it.

But that all goes back to the so what are you waiting for question again. You’re not anti-relationship. Without discounting that you can be happy single, don’t you ever want to be in a relationship or have sex again? After ten years, you know that you can be perfectly happy single, but how will you know if you can be happy in a relationship or not if you don’t try it again?

I’ve been in relationships and I’ve been happy in them. I’ve also seen a whole lot of people go from relationship to relationship and remain miserable. No matter how hard they try, they just can’t make it work. The most successful relationships I’ve ever seen are those between two individuals who feel complete in and of themselves. When people like that come together, they create a pair that can last.

So you’re waiting for that special complete someone who’s not a lunatic?

Well, I’m waiting for a distinct feeling of need to be in a relationship… but that gets into my personal metaphysical beliefs on how my life works. Everyone has a slightly different set of rules, wants and needs that they have to reconcile. I neither expect nor encourage people to go through everything I have in order to get to a good “happy place.” But I have found that some techniques seem to work for a lot of other people. The main one being: Pay Attention!

So besides the lack of good stories to tell, what would make you need a relationship? Do you just wake up one morning and you’re like “Damn, I need a woman”?

Not “a woman.” It would be “that woman”–someone specific. And it would probably happen in the course of meeting her. At least that’s how it’s worked for me in the past.

So you just haven’t crossed paths yet?

We may have… but people change. I’m not the same person I was a year ago.

For the me I am now, it may be a different woman than it would have been for the me a year ago. Maybe she wasn’t the person she needed to be to get involved with me yet..Maybe our paths haven’t crossed at all. Therein lies the adventure of it all!

Interesting.

And that is really where the basic rule of “Pay Attention!” comes in. You have to be aware of who you are and the difference between your own wants and needs–and the wants pushed upon you by society. You have to be able to confidently say “No, not just yet” when you know that a relationship isn’t right.

For me it’s not so much paying attention as listening to what I’m thinking

That’s paying attention! Paying attention to the internal monologue that directs us.

We usually know a whole lot more about ourselves than we’re willing to admit to anyone–even ourselves. It can be very scary to be really honest with yourself. Most of us are full of things we don’t like.

So what happens when you’re basically okay with yourself as a solo project but you don’t particularly want to be solo while at the same time you don’t want to settle for just anyone?

That becomes a question of balancing out the two potentially conflicting “wants” there.

You “want” to be with someone–but not just anyone. That in and of itself can cause some internal conflict.

But then the whole thing gets even more complex because then you have to take into account the wants of others.

Mis-matched wants and needs are one of the biggest causes of relationship problems I’ve ever seen. Or experienced.

This would be where I point out that I’m a big fan of recreational relations–be they simply dating or sexual in nature. They can be fun, wonderful and educational things. They’re just not my thing. The mindsets required for them don’t match with my own wants and needs.

I know, for example, that if I’m in a relationship, I need to be in that relationship for the long run. I’ve been pretty good at recognizing when a romantic relationship won’t be a long run kind of thing (which is most times).

That skill–a skill because it can be learned–has saved me from a whole lot of pain and suffering… and gained me a whole lot of good friends.

Relationships are part of a vast plan for our enlightenment…

—Marianne Williamson

In high school, I attempted to go on a few dates. By most standards, none of those attempts were successful. By the time I got to college, I fel a lot less pressure about dating and tried to get things going more often. While most of those attempts weren’t successful either, they were, at least, less painful to fail at. That failure, when it occurred, could be attributed to a handful of reasons. Two of the most common are different flavors of plain old bad timing. (It’s that whole “Day Late, Dollar Short” thing, y’know.)

Bad Timing (By myself)
Anyone who’s been reading my words here for a while will know that I tend to crush on people pretty easily. Every now and then I actually try to upgrade a crush to an actual date. As those loyal readers also know, my luck when it comes to who I crush on isn’t always the greatest.

So, it should be no surprise that when I actually get around to asking a girl on a date (without doing my research first) things turn out to be timed just plain wrong.

Case in point: My second year at college a large group of my friends and I frequented the main campus dining hall. At that time, the food was still top-notch (especially considering it was the campus dining hall) and, even better, all-you-can-eat for one price.

The counters were staffed with students, of course, and after going regularly for a few weeks during any given quarter you could get a pretty good idea of everyone’s schedule. It was nice to have familiar faces behind the sneeze guards, standing dutifully in the steam. Sometime, when the lines weren’t too long, you could strike up a conversation or two with people you probably wouldn’t recognize without their trusty tongs and serving spoons.

I am a big fan of pizza. And my college had some pretty good ‘za. Even better, they had a few really cute girls that would rotate through the server position in the pizza station. One of them really caught my eye.

She was a little shorter than me, not incredibly slender and not too curvy, with this great loosely curled red-brown hair. She was cute, not gorgeous, but cute in a very safe, friendly sort of way. Her name, I would eventually find out, was Wendy.

After a few months of smiling at her as I picked up a couple of slices and offering pleasant “Hello”s, I managed to psych myself up for the actual Big Question. Luckily, I had my friends to help with that “psyching up” process. I tend to perform better when I have an audience to turn to if things go really bad. At least then I can share the laugh.

So on this particular day, as I go up for a second slice and first swing, I have it all planned out. There’s movies on the weekend that would be great, some camus events coming up–even if I have to schedule the date a month from that day, I’ve got options I can rattle right off.

After I get my ‘za (because having to ask for the food after asking someone out would just be awkward no matter what their answer was), I almost chicken out. I begin to walk away and then turn back.

“I know you probably get this all the time,” I say, almost wincing at how much that sounds like a typical pick-up line, “but would you be interested in going out some time?”

Wendy smiled politely. The kind of smile that says “Damn straight I get this all the time,” but in a nice way. She tells me she’s got a boyfriend, so the answer is no.

I say, “That’s OK…” and make my way back down to my table to relate the tale of failure to my eagerly awaiting friends.

For the rest of that quarter, I got my pizza from the other side of the cafeteria. Just to avoid awkwardness. After that, it was back to the polite smiles and general pleasantries.

Bad Timing (By Others)
My bad luck in dating often exploded to truly riotous proportions. Sometimes it was so bad, I could have sworn I was in some sort of scripted sitcom. A bad one. Where I was the sidekick to some dashing hunk.

By the end of my second year at college, I had switched majors. This brought me into contact with a whole new batch of people in a very varied group of classes. One of those classes was International Media (taught by one of my favorite professors of all time Dr. Michael Prosser). It was an interesting class–fun, creative and educational. Even better, though, were the people in it. Well, one person in particular.

Her name was Liz V. (not to be confused with another Liz who would end up in my classes… and who’d I’d have considerably more success with when it came to dating). She was very earthy. Her straight dark hair came down to just below her shoulder and her eyes were a warm brown with a sparkle of excitement in them. She didn’t wear a lot of jewelry or makeup, and when she did she went from attractive to stunning in her own way.

I had a couple of chances to work with Liz on projects in class and we got on pretty well. About halfway through the quarter, I decided I’d take the chance and ask her out. Though my job at the campus magazine, I had managed to score a stack of passes to a new movie coming out, so I even had an excuse to talk to her about something other than Russian news casts.

That day I made it in to the classroom early, so I could be ready as soon as she came in. Before long, she was there, getting situated in her desk. I started up the conversation and quickly got to the part I had rehearsed in my head.

“So what are you up to this weekend?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet,” she answered. Just the answer I was hoping for.

“Well…”

This was the point where my friend Jill walked into the room and took up the seat next to me, on the opposite side from where Liz was sitting.

“…I have some passes to a new movie that’s opening and I was…”

“What movie are you talking about?” Jill interjected.

“Uh,” I turned and glared at Jill. She was not part of my plan. “Don Juan DeMarco with Johnny Depp and Brando.”

“Oh!” Jill said with such vehemence you’d think she knew exactly what she was doing to me. “I’ve heard that’s a movie you have to get laid after seeing!”

I turned back to Liz. Using every ounce of my will power to not pummel Jill.

“Or we could go see something else…” I said sheepishly.

Then Dr. Prosser came in and class started.

I never got an answer. And I didn’t ask again.

After class, I explained to Jill exactly what she had done and she apologized. It was one of those moments of true obliviousness that you don’t actually believe exist until you experience it for yourself.

I ran in to Liz V. a year or so later (coincidentally when I was actually dating, uh, Liz…) at an event in the city. Her, my girlfriend, her boyfriend and I chatted very briefly before we went out separate ways.

I haven’t seen her since.

Tags: college

It has been said that the only constant is change.

If that is true of life in general then it is doubly true when it comes to our relationships.

Contrary to the over-arching romantic notion of there only being one person out there for you, experience has shown me that, while at any given time that may be true, over the course of a lifetime (or even a decade) it is most definitey false.

And, if you think about it for a moment, that’s exactly how it should be.

If we are constantly growing and changing, why should our taste in partners stay he same? If we’re already in a romantic relationship, and we are growing at a different rate (or different direction) than our partner, why should that relationship not change? Are you the same person you were ten years ago? Five years ago? One year ago? You may not even be the same person you were when you got up this morning when you go to bed at night.

There are a near infinite number of things that can change us and change us deeply. Even the relationship itself can change us. As we interact more with our significant other, as we see ourselves through his or her eyes and gain better focus on them through our own, we can’t help but change. At least, as long as we’re being honest with ourselves about what we’re seeing. It’s not always a pretty picture.

With change such a prevalent thing in our lives, it never ceases to amaze me how horribly trained we are to deal with it in some areas of our lives. Relationships are probably the most troublesome and easiest to cite as an example. Yet we all–myself included–fall into the same traps again and again and again.

We fall for someone. If we’re lucky, we get into a romantic relationship with them. But, more often than not, that romance runs its course and the relationship comes to an end. Sometimes that end is amicable, sometimes it is not. But the simple fact of the matter is that the majority of the romantic relationships you get into are going to end sooner or later.

And yet, we are always shocked, dismayed and hurt when they do.

Emotions are funny like that. Love is funny like that. It is a self-referential oxymoron that brings us, if we’re lucky, a slightly larger amount of pleasure than it does pain. Or at least that’s how it seems until you dig a bit deeper into the root causes of that suffering.

When you get beyond the initial shock and remove your own bruised ego from the equation (after all, you’ve put a lot of time and effort into that now defunct relationship, you must have done something wrong, right? No.) we’re the ones inflicting that pain on ourselves. Love is just an easy scapegoat.

Romantic love is especially fickle. What makes us all hot and heavy one year, may make us squirm in a completely different way come next year. Why? Because we change as people. Our tastes change. Our ways of thinking change. The expressions of our Love should, logically, change with those other things. And they do. But we rarely accept that as the reality it is.

Instead, we fight it. We hold tightly to something that we should be letting go of. We cling to the illusion of unchanging permanence when what we should be doing is embracing the beauty of an enduring Love that can change over time–that can be expressed in different ways as circumstances change.

We don’t realize that it’s OK to Love someone, but to not like them. That it’s OK to Love someone and be happy you are not with them. That it’s OK to let the romance die so the Love can live in a different form (like Friendship).

Every relationship happens to teach us something. Sometimes it’s something fun–like a new way to make your partner’s toes curl. Other times it’s something not so fun–like how to survive the breakup with the man you thought was The One.

The great myth in romance is that there is that One. What all the fairy tales and Harlequin books fail to mention, though, is that the template for The One is constantly in flux. They also often fail to note that the template is just a projection of ourselves. As long as we are growing and changing, so is the mold that The One will have to fit. If we’re lucky, we’ll fall in with someone who is changing in sync with our template. Nine times out of ten, though, he or she will fit for a little while and then get squeezed out.

And that leaves us feeling cheated. It leaves us feeling like the Universe is out to get us and that if we had just tried a little bit harder…

No. That is just the way the world works. People change and their relationships change with them. It is normal, it is natural and it is OK.

It’s also OK to feel cheated and that the Universe is out to get us and a little down on yourself. That’s human. Just don’t let those negative feelings trap you in a self-destructive spiral.

Transitions are never easy. They become even more difficult if you try to stop them from happening by holding on to illusions that you know to be illusions.

Love endures. It just changes the way it looks–the way it is expressed.

Let the transitions happen. Revel in them. It means you are alive. It means you and your partner (either current or former) are growing into the people you are meant to be.

Tags: love

You’ve survived the first few moments, where you were just head over heels for someone you didn’t know at all. You mustered the courage to introduce fantasy to reality and yourself to your crush. There’s only one more set of “moments” to go: the last few.

Of course, crushes can go on for a long time. Even Grown Up Crushes can linger as you decide if there is a friendship lurking amid the heady hopes and heart-thumping dreams. Those first few moments and last few moments may be separated by months–or years!

Inevitably, though, they do come around and you’re left with a choice to make.

There are only three ways a crush can end: You forgo romance and instead revel in a good, solid friendship; you take the plunge and dive into romance; you decide it was just a passing interest and go your separate ways.

As you disabuse yourself of the outlandish fantasy elements of your crush and bring your view of the other person down to a realistic level, you will learn a lot about them. You will also learn a lot about yourself. As the you work through the process, you should get a clear picture of where you fit in their lives and where you fit in theirs.

Finding Friendship

Most of the time, if you’re being honest with yourself about your crushes, you’ll find most of them make better friends than lovers. After all, there was something there that caught your interest and as long as it was more than just “Wow, she’s hot!” you probably have things in common.

If you’ve been working Grown-up Crushes for a while, you’ll have already discovered that Friendship is just another form of Love–a form not cluttered with all the trappings of Romance or the pressure of dating. If you’re open to it, Friendship can provide you with just about everything you need in a relationship.

Friendship is a good thing. Nothing is lost and you gain more time to explore one another’s lives. And who knows, maybe as time passes, you and your former crush will grow more as people and end up in the right place to explore those long-ago romantic feelings. (That leads into a discussion of the Friend Crush, of course, and won’t be fully dealt with here and now.)

Plunge Into Romance

In a handful (or more) of cases, your crush will be more than happy to explore romance with you. This is the way we hope all crushes will end when we start them. That hope, though, can cause us to make poor decisions.

Many times I have seen people fall in love with the idea of being in a relationship. They focus on the idea and not the reality that there is another person involved in the relationship. Another person who has to be just as willing and able to be involved. If you get into a relationship before introducing enough reality into the fantasy of your crush, you may very well be in for a rude awakening when reality finally creeps in.

But, there are lessons to be learned regardless of why or how the relationship starts. The only thing to be lost by taking the plunge into romance is the fantasy.

Hit the Road

Through getting to know someone you were crushing on, you may discover that the reality doesn’t contain any of the fantasy that once caught your attention. You may discover that even friendship would a stretch with the real person.

In that case, it is important that you give up the crush and accept the reality. If you’ve been paying attention and really being honest in your pursuit of a Grown-up Crush, you know you won’t be able to “save” or “fix” the reality of the person to make them match your initial fantasy. Any relationship based on one person trying to change the other–for better or worse–is doomed to failure.

That doesn’t mean you can’t still be genial to your now-former crush. By all means continue to be social with them. But try not to send mixed signals, either to yourself or to them. If you can’t handle the discrepancy between the initial fantasy and reality, it may be best to just stay away from them all together.

In the End

The last few moments of a crush can be painful or joyful and they can stretch out almost as long as those first few moments if you’re not careful. But if you’re honest with yourself and make your decision from the heart and not from the fear in the pit of your stomach or the noise in your mind–if you are decisive and willing to take the risk–the transition from crush to actual relationship can be quick and relatively painless.

Tags: fantasy

The trip up had been a little frustrating. Nerves were wracked while we prepared. The prom itself was lovely. The first night ended in a missed opportunity. The second day found that opportunity realized as I had my first real kiss.

The weekend, as a whole, was fantastic. At the time, it was the best weekend I ever had.

But there was something uneasy about it, sitting not too far beneath the surface. Some sort of doubt. Most of the confusion during the weekend was mine.

But not all of it.

On the last day, before Matt and I made the trip back down to our corner of the state, we decided to do one last round of lunch and spending time together with the girls.

The original plan called for pizza, that was almost thwarted when a very stressed greeter at the Little Caesars Pizza informed us they were having “some problems.” The residual smell of smoke told us the rest of the story. Luckily, there was a Pizza Hut nearby that served as a suitable substitute.

We took some pizza to go and found ourselves a spot in a local park by the river. Matt and Dawn soon went off to entertain one another. Vicki and I wandered to the playground we had passed coming in. We held hands and kissed, but mostly we talked.

That was when I found out where that other current of confusion was coming from.

It seems that there was another guy she had been interested in for a while. The fact that I showed up in her life had kind of complicated things a bit. It seems she kind of liked us both.

This revelation both elated and devastated me. It was wonderful to be “in the running” for someone’s affections, but even back then I knew I stood little chance of “winning.” I was six hours away and he was in the next town over. But, it seemed, he may already have a girlfriend. But, again, I was six hours away.

The conversation didn’t go much past that point. As our time together grew short, we chose to focus on other things. More pleasant things.

Before long, it was without question time for Matt and I to head for our own homes. Goodbyes were reluctantly exchanged.

I don’t remember much of the ride back. I’d imagine it was much the same as the ride up there had been. A lot of Desperado playing on the mostly broken radio. Some bad jokes. But mostly a lot of silence and a lot of time to bask in the overall glory of the weekend.

It would be another month before I saw Vicki again. We talked sporadically and wrote back and forth. This being before everyone and their grandmother had e-mail, the letters were all handwritten or typed and sent via regular mail. I still have all the ones I received. (I still have all the letters I’ve received from anyone.)

We didn’t discuss a whole lot what the deal between the two of us was. I really didn’t want it resolved, though I told myself I’d be good with whatever she wanted. I wanted things to last between us. I wanted there to be an ongoing romantic relationship.

Why? Because that’s what I had always wanted with anyone. The lesson of a few months earlier–that what one wants isn’t always what’s right, let alone what’s best and most certainly not always what is–faded into the background of my daydreams and hopes.

I was reminded how disconnected I could get from reality in July when we got together again for the 49th Annual Key Club International Convention in Toronto.

The trip up was by bus. For most of that trip, she barely said three words to me. That, of course, confused the hell out of me. The whole convention was an amazing experience, but the one pertinent lesson came when Vicki and I finally talked.

While I had been stuck in my fantasy world, she had moved on. She had realized that something romantic wasn’t going to work–not just due to the distance, but due to the fact that she just didn’t really feel that way about me.

Upon hearing that, something in the depths of my mind lit up. The first thing it illuminated was the last lesson I had learned. The second thing brought to light, glowed like a beacon. It was a new lesson, a new reality.

Accept things that you can’t change. Revel in what is or let it go.

For the rest of that trip, that’s exactly what I did. Vicki, Dawn and I had fantastic times on that trip. I also met a number of new and exciting people, some of whom I stayed in touch with for years. It was an adventure, without question. Those conventions always were.

I would see Dawn again the following year at the New York State District Convention. It wouldn’t be until my third year in college that I’d see Vicki again. We kept in touch, though. In fact, we still keep in touch.

She’s now one of my oldest friends of the group that I never went to school with. I’ve taken great pleasure in hearing the wonderful turns her life has taken and been there to offer support when those turns haven’t been so wonderful. There’s no tension between us, even though we have what some would call a “history.” It was long ago and far away.

It brought us together so we could be friends. That prom and everything that followed it were just the proving grounds for that friendship. Both of us learned about intimacy a bit, we learned to share our thoughts and be open and honest our feelings–no matter how much it hurt or how confused we were. I learned to accept reality, to be happy for the joy I had and not pine for what could have been. (Granted, that’s a lesson that didn’t stick the first few times, but we all have learning curves, right?)

The prom is the next to last great communal event of our shared high school experience. Whether we went to it or not, we learned something from it. High school is funny like that. So many chances to learn lessons, and so few of the important ones come from classes.

At my best prom, I learned not how to dance, but how to live.

Tags: firsts