How to Crush Without Being Crushed

One of the comments I got from last week’s tale of successfully crush revelation raised the question of what a successful crush entailed.

The simple answer is this:

A successful crush is one that helps you become a better person while causing as few new problems as possible.

That’s it.

Too often we confuse and blur the line between a crush and an actual relationship. A crush is an imaginary relationship–even if it a component of a real one.

See, a crush deals with our internal hopes, dreams, and expectations, regardless of what reality is.

A crush only has an effect on one person–the person with the crush.

In telling someone about a crush you have or have had on them, you always open the door to two things: a new, real, relationship and more complications.

From Internal to External

Many things that are just fine inside our own heads are not at all acceptable outside of it. We can fantasize all we want about strangling that annoying person at the next table who’s talking loudly on his cell phone. Actually doing it? Not really a recommended course of action.

The same is true of our crushes, but for slightly different reasons.

While there are severe external consequences for actualizing imaginings of murder, there are severe internal consequences for prematurely tossing a crush and reality together–as well as external consequences.

When it’s inside our heads, a crush only has an effect on us. It’s in a nice little sandbox and we can poke at it, prod it, analyze it, and revel in it to our heart’s content.

Toss it out into the public and, suddenly, there isn’t as much control. There are more people involved–you, the person you’re crushing on, and maybe more. There is an exponential increase in feedback from multiple sources, much of which may very well be at odds with the basic nature of the imaginary relationship that has been constructed.

Making the transition from internal to external is where we end up being crushed.

As long as we exist solely in the imaginary, there is no pain.

Harsh Reality

Sadly, we can’t exist solely in the imaginary for any length of time and still be considered functional.

Reality is a rudely persistent thing and will encroach regularly on even our deepest fantasies. Inserting it’s objective facts in place of our imagined perfections. Getting our pristine pedestals (and those we put upon them) dingy and covered in grime. Slowly, surely, and often painfully forcing us to accept what is as what is.

The pain we feel from a crush–especially when we try to act on it–is fundamentally derived from it’s conflict with reality.

This is why I advocate taking the time to ease your crush into something that is closer to reality before doing anything external with it. It makes the transition easier and can teach us a lot about yourself along the way.

Before you can really begin to mold your crushes, though, you have to have a solid starting point. You have to have at least a basic understanding of who you are right now.

Well look at that a bit in this week’s other posts.

Tags: core concepts, crushes, definitions, success

So I’ve talked about how to tell someone you have a crush on them and why you’d want to do that. I figure now it’s time I share a couple of stories from my own life. Just a little while ago, I told you about one that didn’t go so well. Now I’d like to share a much more positive experience.

History Can Brighten the Present

As I’ve mentioned before, in high school there were many, many, many girls I had crushes on. Some of those crushes left me blind to other opportunities, but mostly I missed out on things because I just couldn’t fathom anyone actually liking me. Too many years of rejection and too much feeling like an outside will do that.

But, as the years went by, I came to terms with my high school (and middle school) experiences. I accepted that I was at least as much responsible for my situations as anyone or any other force was. Many of those crushes developed into decent friendships, and that let me keep in touch with people, at least for a little while.

When I moved back to my home town after college, there were still a handful of people I knew there. Others weren’t that far away. Classmates and underclassmen from my high school years. Some people I expected to see. Others, I was pleasantly surprised to run into or hear from.

Kerry was one of the latter. She was a constant in my high school days. Not in many of the same classes, but thankfully often on the same schedule when it came to lunch or gym or a study hall. During college, I’d lost touch with her. Once or twice our paths crossed. I hadn’t expected to run into her again… but I stumbled across some contact information and, just before Christmas one year, we got back in touch.

She invited me to a little party her and her boyfriend were throwing within sensible driving distance. There’d be a handful of people from high school there. It was one of my earlier chances (way before Facebook would make it easy) to reconnect with my own past and gain some perspective.

I arrived and, before long, the conversation turned to those high school days gone by.

At one point, Kerry lamented, “No one liked me back then!”

I laughed and told her the truth. “Everyone liked you. Most of us had a crush on you. I know I did.”

And she looked at me for a moment, then hauled back and smacked me in the shoulder, just like old times. “You should have said something, idiot. I would have said yes.”

Everyone got a good laugh out of that.

We can’t change what is in the past. But sometimes revisiting it with new eyes can give us a different perspective.

For years, both her and I had thought we were outcasts and unloved. A nearly a decade later, we proved that perception to be untrue.

Through that one, simple, honest and unconditional declaration, both of us whisked away some small bit of darkness that had been holding us down for years.

A better understanding of the past, brightened our day.

This is the kind of crush reveal that often goes over best. There was a good distance between the actual crush and the admission of it. Circumstances at the time of the reveal made even the thought of exploring the old crush in anything other than an academic manner an impossibility. It happened naturally, in the flow of a normal conversation. And there were no expectations on anyone’s part of what the revelation would lead to.

Granted, if either of us had been in a negative headspace at the time, it could very easily have set off a negative spiral of lamenting missed opportunities of the past. We were both in good spirits, though, so that negativity was avoided.

This experience is similar to many I’ve had over the years as I’ve confided in past crushes how I felt about them “way back when”. In fact, it’s kicked off some better communication and planted seeds for better friendships that I had with them while I was crushing on them.

Love, even old Love, has a wonderful power to transcend time and bring with it a bit of joy.

We just have to be willing to share it.

When we do, we can see that history can brighten the present.

Tags: anecdotes, crushes, friendship, high school, lessons learned

So I’ve talked about how to tell someone you have a crush on them and why you’d want to do that. I figure now it’s time I share a couple of stories from my own life. One when things went pretty darn wrong and another where they went considerably better.

A Failure to Understand

Back in my first year of college, just when I was starting to get my head clear and really start living my life as myself (as opposed to some oddly contorted version of who I and others thought I should be), I met a girl. As usual I fell for her something fierce and didn’t do all that much about it.

Mijan and I spent a lot of time together. Her and a couple of her friends easily integrated with the group I was running with. We all went out together every now and then, we all explored strange and unusual ideas, we were all friends. Coming from the not entirely self-imposed isolation of middle and high school, I was loving it.

One night, my buddy Z, being the epitome of awesomeness (which I really couldn’t appreciate quite as much at the time) loaded us all into his car to go… somewhere. Maybe it was just out to a movie, maybe shopping, maybe just a spin around town. I don’t remember. What I do remember is that there were about eight of us crammed into his Audi. Five in the back seat, him driving and two of us in the passenger seat. Most stacked two deep.

What makes Z awesome (at least in this instance) is that he orchestrated it so that it was me who ended up in the passenger seat and Mijan who ended up sitting on my lap, her head cocked to one side so it wouldn’t be pressed completely up against the roof.

Really, all the other details are a bit fuzzy. All I knew was that she was there, on my lap, and, every now and then, shed glance back, smile, and laugh a little at or contribute to the conversation that was going. I could feel waves of attraction coming off her in my direction.

It was shortly after that night that I decided I was definitely going to tell her how I felt.

I spent days psyching myself up for it. Had seventeen different segues planned, moving from telling her how I’d fallen for her the day I met her in passing at orientation and how I’d been thrilled to stumble upon her in the computer lab and ecstatic about being able to help her log in properly (leaving out the semi-obvious fact that doing so also let me get her e-mail address so I could keep in touch with her) to asking her out on a date.

After all, it was sure thing!

Right?

But I was far from solid in my conviction and still quite unsteady when it came to asserting myself in any way. Especially in matters of the heart.

So I begged my friend Chris to help me by serving as moral support. “Dude, I’m going to do something that may be incredibly stupid,” I said. “I need you there to at least watch in case it goes bad.” He grudgingly agreed and went to wait in my room.

A few minutes later, I corralled Mijan in. “Hey, can I talk to you about something?” I didn’t get a look at her face when she saw Chris was in the room, too, as I was rehearsing my lines in my head, but I can imagine she was, at the very least, a bit wary of what was about to happen.

To door closed and I launched into some jabbering, halted, lilting version of something vaguely resembling what I had wanted to say. It took maybe a minute or two to get through, but felt like days. Agonizing days. But then I got to the next to last set of words. “I really like you and have for a long time. And I hope you feel the same way…”

I paused as I caught the look of utter horror in her eyes. She took the opportunity and rendered my planned final question more than moot.

“I don’t,” she said. “You’re nice and all but I like… him.” And she looked back at my friend Chris, who I can only imagine was in almost as much shock as I was.

That’s when it occurred to me that Chris had been sitting behind me in the car that night. Every time she turned around to smile and laugh, she was actually looking over my shoulder at him. Those waves of attraction I felt coming in my direction? They were meant to hit three feet past me.

To my credit, I didn’t crumble into a ball and die right there. I felt like I would. But I didn’t. Instead, I politely excused myself. “Well, then. I’ll, uh, just leave you two to talk.” And went for a bit of a walk.

Not at all what I had planned.

In retrospect, I couldn’t have done it much more wrong without insulting her family and vomiting on her.

My first mistake was going into the conversation with high expectations. A close second was going in with a set agenda. The third? Dragging someone else into it. Fourth and finally, I was so wrapped up in what I had planned to say that I must have missed at least a dozen cues that should have stopped me before things went as far as they did.

If I was just going to confess my crush on her, I should have done so in a much more casual manner.

But my goal wasn’t to let her know how I felt.

My goal was to ask her out.

With that as the goal, I should have skipped the long, drawn out story (which I obsessed over something fierce) and just skipped straight to “Would you like to go on a date sometime?”

It would have been a lot less painful–for all of us–if it hadn’t been built up as much as it was.

When we attach so much significance to a hoped-for (or, even worse, expected) outcome, we can’t help but be crushed when things don’t pan out that way.

The whole situation could have been as simple as me asking her out and her politely telling me no. Instead, I brought it into a whole new level of pain and discomfort for three people.

I failed to understand where I was coming from. I failed to take her (or my buddy) into

It was bad, but we all recovered from it. Chris and I are still friends and still in touch. Mijan drifted out of our group as time went on, but we parted as friends. I haven’t seen or heard from her in over a decade. (But I’d love to have the chance to catch up… and hear her side of this story.)

Not all of my crush declarations have gone anywhere near this bad. I’ll tell you about one of the better ones next…

Tags: anecdotes, college, crushes, friendship, lessons learned

After last week’s post about how to tell someone you have a crush on them, I was met again and again with two major questions: Why not just ask them out? and Why tell them?

The first I answered a while ago here. In a nutshell: dating isn’t something everyone enjoys doing. At least not dating or asking out everyone you have a crush on. If you have half a clue, you’ll be able to tell that some people just wouldn’t be good for you–or you wouldn’t be good for them. Others may be perpetually unavailable for one reason or another (say, married or stationed overseas or not interested in someone of your gender). Still others you wouldn’t be good for.

Who you fall for can’t really be helped. What you do after you’ve fallen for them… well, you have a lot more control over that. And by asserting that control, you gain more.

So that’s why you wouldn’t just ask them out, but why tell them?

1. Because you need to

Secrets build up within us. Ones backed by strong emotions can really begin to eat away at our insides. A persistent crush can very quickly grow into an obsession–turning from a healthy bit of fun into a full-on destructive crush. Much like an old boiler, every now and then a little steam needs to be released in a controlled manner to keep the whole thing from exploding in a bad way.

Just saying the words: “You know, I think you’re pretty awesome” or something else that won’t raise a whole lot of “OMG do they like me in that way?” panic can help. If not, then you may have to be a little more explicit and follow all the rules laid out in the previous post. Chances are if you don’t say something, you’ll get to the breaking point and do something reckless that could cause more harm than good to any relationship you have or could have with your crush–including friendship.

If you’ve started to spend all of your time thinking about your crush or find it very difficult to fight off urges to do inappropriate things (like suddenly planting a big, wet, kiss on their lips in public), it’s probably time to assert control and conduct a measured release of that built up tension.

Amazingly, the act of declaring a crush can sometimes make it just kind of go away.

Note that this isn’t always the best reason and can be used to justify a good many fully self-centered and malicious actions. Before you decide this is the reason, be sure to have exhausted the others.

2. Because everyone already knows, anyway

Most of us aren’t anywhere near as subtle as we think. If you’re crushing on someone hard enough, chances are people are going to notice no matter how hard you try to keep it under wraps. Once people start to notice, it becomes more and more a waste of energy hiding it.

This is especially true if the person you’re crushing on has noticed. Doubly so if he or she is made uncomfortable by it.

Honesty is a key factor in any healthy relationship. If you have a crush on a friend, but don’t plan on pursuing any actual romantic activity with them, you should be able to tell them that. Especially under the above-noted circumstances of everyone already knowing.

3. Because you think the feeling may be mutual

If you’ve been paying attention to your own emotions and are aware of how those around you act toward one another and toward you, chances are you’ll eventually notice someone who has a crush on you. You don’t have to call them out on it, but if you’ve got a crush on them, too, it may be something worth discussing.

Many times those just-below-the-surface feelings can cause a little bit of friction. Even if they don’t cause as many problems as the “heading toward destructive crush” kind mentioned in reason #1, it can make working with someone a bit awkward. Telling them may not make it any less awkward–it may even have the opposite effect–but a good-faith effort to put all your cards on the table and talk it out with them could make things run a whole lot smoother.

Note that this isn’t bringing it up in the hope of dating them. (We’ll discuss that in a minute.) This is, again, honesty and communication among people who already have a relationship of some sort going on.

4. Because it’s a hell of a way to meet someone

This one is only tenable if you’re crushing on someone you don’t know and don’t have an interest in dating them. With no pre-existing relationship, you can be pretty direct as there’s most likely not much to lose. Most of the time, they’ll think it’s just you hitting on them, working your way toward asking them out. If you can clearly communicate (and illustrate) that that’s not the case–if you can tell them that your take on how awesome they are isn’t just sexual or a means to a carnal end–you’ll make a lasting impression.

This can, of course, backfire. People just aren’t used to receiving blatant, honest compliments from strangers who expect nothing from them in return. If you continue to see this person, they may spend weeks or months wondering when you’re going to drop the platonic act and ask them out. They may even be offended if you don’t ask them out.

5. Because you want to date them

If this is your reason for telling someone you have a crush on them, don’t. Instead suck it up and ask them out (if it’s at all possible–as in, they’re not in an exclusive monogamous relationship and are interested in your gender). Using a drawn out “I’ve had a thing for you since we met…” spins up all the movie cliches that have ever been put in our heads. And if the person you’ve been crushing on turns you down for a date after you’ve worked yourself up by going, point by point, through all the wonderfully high expectations you’ve set up, you’re going to be crushed. And that’s what we’re trying to avoid here.

The stories of how long you’ve loved them can wait that first actual date.

The Bottom Line

There are more than just those five reasons to tell someone you’ve been crushing on them. I’ve done it as a kind of social experiment, to see if people would react the way I thought they would (they usually did). Invariably, it seems to brighten most people’s day… especially if the crush was long ago and can obviously not grow into anything romantic now.

Dating isn’t for everyone. Taking the leap of faith to tell someone you’ve got a crush on them–while having no expectation of anything more–isn’t an easy thing. But if you do it, you may be surprised at the results.

Have you ever told anyone you had a crush on them? What happened next? Would you do it again? What are your reasons for telling someone you have a crush on them? Let me know.

Tags: communication, crushes

With International Crush Day having just passed, I hope some of you let fly with declarations of wild interest to some of your crushes.

Me? I discovered that I really don’t have many actual crushes around I haven’t told about my crush on them. And those that I do have… well, they’re not quite ripe yet, so they’re staying on the vine a little longer. Granted, I did kind of limit myself to only one or two of the seven types of crushes I make note of, but I’m going to save up all my Hollywood crushin’ for Dragon*Con, when I’ll be able to tell some of them in person.

I mentioned my lack of secret crushes to a few people and they were a bit shocked. “You mean you just tell people you have a crush on them? How do you do that?”

The easy answer is “Practice.” The more complete answer includes the words “lots of pain and whole lot of willingness to risk things.” Then I figured it would be more useful to put together a short list of steps that I go through when getting ready to tell someone I have (or have had) a crush on someone.

1. Be Honest About Why You’re Telling Them

As is often the case with crushes, they pan out best if you use them to dig deep into yourself and find real answers. The first step in declaring your crush is to be honest about why you want to make such a declaration. Are you telling them in the hope that they feel the same way? Are you telling them with the expectation that they’ll drop everything and run away with you like in the movies? Do you think it will brighten their day? Complicate their lives? Lift a weight from your own mind? Make for a good story later?

The reasons are endless and can be very personal. At this stage, don’t worry about anything other than the truth of your answer. We’ll be filtering for sensibility and reality before long.

2. Actually Know the Object of your Crush

There are some pretty big differences between telling someone you’ve actually gotten to know that you have a crush on them and telling a stranger or vague acquaintance (or celebrity). If the person you’re crushing on is someone you know, you should be better able to bring it up in conversation, but you’ll also possibly have more to lose. If it’s a complete stranger, you really don’t have anything to lose except your imagined persona of them.

3. Estimate How They Will React

This one is never going to be 100%, but you should be able to estimate pretty well on the “best case” and “worst case” ends of things. If you’ve known your friend Sally for a decade and she’s always going a bit batty about the endless parade of guys who hit on her, you’re really going to have to be careful to not fall into that group by default. If your friend Chuck tends to keep an even keel even in the roughest of situations, you can be pretty sure that your admission of a crush on him will, at worst, lead to a discussion of the pros and cons of exploring it more.

Again, honesty with yourself is important. If you answer this while clad in the rose colored glasses that some crushes breed, you’re not going to see the bad side of things. If you’ve already decided you’re doomed to be alone, you won’t be able to reach for the best possible outcome.

4. Ask Yourself: Is it Really Worth It?

Take your answers to the previous three questions and line them up. Objectively look at them–best and worst cases.  Imagine how you’ll feel hearing each of those answers (and a few somewhere in between). Now weigh those feelings against how remaining silent will affect you and your relationship with the other person. Is your crush under control? Can it simmer for another week, month, or year without getting in the way of a platonic relationship with the person? Without getting in the way of anything else you may be involved with? Or will you just be bursting at the seams to declare your love every time she even glances in your direction?

Can the object of your crush realistically handle the information you are about to give to them? Does it stand a better chance of making them happier or of making their lives more difficult? Are your reasons for telling them in both your and their best interest?

Remember, a crush is a one sided thing. Once it is declared, it’s something more than just an imaginary relationship in your head–it’s something new… it’s a potential real relationship. There’s now someone else actually involved so you have to take their side of things into account, too.

5. Speak Up, then Shut Up

Be as casual as possible when broaching the subject of your crush on someone. I’ve found it’s best if you can get into a conversation about related subjects (like celebrity crushes, or the crazy feelings we all have at one point of another, or relationships in general). If that segue doesn’t go well, be prepared to do two things: Take a huge leap of faith and possible have your hopes shattered.

If you’re dealing with a Hollywood Crush, you’re probably going to have to be more direct. (Unless you’ve managed to score a week in Hawaii with your celebrity crush or something.) You’re also going to have to accept the fact that he or she probably hears the same thing all the time.

When the opportunity comes (or when you make the opportunity), be direct and to the point. “You know, for a while there in high school, I had a huge crush on you” or “Ever since we met, I’ve been kind of crushing on you” are much better than long, drawn out tales of woe, metaphor and simile.

Once you’ve let the cat out of the bag, shut your mouth and pay attention to the reaction. If she asks questions, answer them. If he looks disgusted, try to laugh it off and break from the conversation in as casual and normal a way as possible. Even if it is a big deal, don’t give in right away to your negative emotions. Save the exploration of the negative for when you’re around other friends or can have the privacy you need to let it all out.

Space after the declaration of a crush can be a very important thing. There’s a good chance that you have, in one way or another, just rocked this other person’s world. Some people respond better to that than others, no matter how they actually feel. That initial reaction of disgust may be a defense mechanism–as can that overly happy reaction.

Only two things will reconcile perception, hope, and fear with reality: Time and Talking.

Declaring your crush can be a big risk. But, at the worst, you’ve removed a layer of illusion from your interaction with someone else and gotten a better idea of who they really are.

At best, you find out they feel the same way. And then the real challenges of a real relationship (maybe even a romantic one) kick in.

Tags: crushes, lists, relationships