How to Crush Without Being Crushed

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

This little video, a 2009 Cannes Lions winner, says a whole lot about communication. How much we need it. How difficult it can be. How wonderful making the right connection is.

And it does it all without the main characters saying anything.

It really does take the idea of text messages–something those of us online deal with daily–to a whole new level.

What’s the strangest way you’ve ever connected with someone else?

Tags: communication, relationships, video

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s how easily I can fall back into old patterns.

And my old patterns when it comes to romantic feelings are far from beneficial to me or anyone else who may be involved.

I can very quickly fall into an obsessive, self-destructive crush mode. On the flip side, I can fall for someone because I think I can “save” them–the perfect example of White Knight Syndrome. There are also any number of other things that I’m at least vaguely attracted to that are sure-fire paths to badly skewed cost/benefit ratio.

In order to avoid those known problem areas, I’ve got a set of questions and tests that I’ve conditioned the logical side of my mind to automatically start running through as soon as a crush lasts for more than a day or two. Here are five of the big ones.

1. Am I Really Falling For Her?

Often, this is the only question I need to ask and answer to determine a real relationship would be a bad idea. There are many things that can look like falling for someone. You can be in love with the idea of a relationship–any relationship–and the object of your crush is just a convenient target. You can see them as a “project”–something to be fixed (a la The White Knight issues). Or, in my case, you can fall for the idea of the story that the attempt at the relationship would lead to–probably not the best reason to get involved with someone.

2. Why Am I Falling For Her?

If you manage to get past the first question, this one serves as a double-check and a deeper exploration of your own feelings. Again, the answer here could point back to a White Knight issue (“Because she has so much potential that I can help bring out!”). It can also lead to a very sensible list of positive qualities that match well with your own sensibilities. A close look at this list can also hint at the depth of the potential relationship–if everything focuses on the physical (pretty, snappy dresser, good job, etc.), there’s a hefty chance it’ll be a superficial fling.

3. What Do We Have In Common?

Another chance for a nice list. Relationships between people with nothing in common (despite what oh-so-many pop-culture fairy tales tell us) rarely work out well in the long run. At best, both people happily go their separate ways with broadened horizons. More often, there are grudges, heavy misunderstandings, and big fights. One big thing to look for is a common communication style. If one of you communicates best face to face and the other does best via e-mail or text message, it’s going to be a rough road.

4. Is A Relationship Even Vaguely Appropriate?

Is she a co-worker? Is he a business partner? Your boss? Your employee? A recent ex of a good friend? There are any number of situations that could make a relationship seem inappropriate. Even if it isn’t a make-or-break question, it’s important to realize going into a relationship how it’s going to look to those outside. External social dynamics can cause a lot of problems inside a relationship.

5. How Much Am I Willing To Compromise?

This is the biggest of the big deal questions. It can override all that come before or after it. It can also, in retrospect, point right back to the first question. Almost any obstacle can be overcome, almost any hardship beaten, but all that comes at a cost. Often, that cost is in our own comfort, integrity, safety, and/or security. If she refuses to live north of the Mason-Dixon line, are you OK with having to travel long distances to visit your family in Chicago? If he can’t stand the west coast, are you willing to give up on that dream of living in LA? Relationships are always about compromise, you should be very familiar with where your limits of giving are.

Granted, these are all questions asked by the logical side of the brain. There’s only so much that side can do if the emotional half is determined to jump from crush to relationship, no matter what.

At least if things go poorly, you’ll have the small consolation of being able to look back, shake your head, and say “I should have known.”

And if things go well… all the better: You’ve either beaten your own odds or proved you accurately know yourself.

Tags: crushes, lessons learned, lists, relationships

Every now and then, something pops up that’s kind of tangentially related to the whole relationship thing.

This is one of those times.

Shane Snow, writer and artist, produced a nice little infographic over at Gizmodo that touches on a very important issue: technology and our relationships. In this case, the near-ubiquitous iPhone. It’s good for a laugh… probably because it hits so close to home for many of us who are neck-deep in technology.

Check out When Is It Inappropriate To Use Your iPhone?

So… how often has technology (be it cell phones or video games or TIVO or what have you) caused a problem in your relationship?

Tags: relationships, technology

High school is a tumultuous time for most people.

Hormones are doing nasty things to our insides and outsides. Social pressures are forcing us to make choices that seem so much bigger than they are. Our very minds consipire to cause us problems trying to reconcile new ideas, strange interactions and the pop culture “standards” we’ve been fed our entire lives.

It can really suck.

And for me, it did.

You couldn’t pay me to go back and re-live those four years. When I graduated, I was happier to be done with that place and time than I ever was for anything else.

It would be years before I put enough distance between the person I was then and the one I had grown in to and was able to even remember half the good stuff that had gone on.

I never had a Winnie Cooper or a Watts. I was more Cunningham than Fonzereli. I most certainly wasn’t as lucky as Lloyd Dobbler.

What I was, was some strange and confused embryonic form of who I am now. A lot has changed–so much that the “me” from back then wouldn’t even be able to imagine the person I am now as a possibility.

Anyone who’s still the same person they were in high school has serious problems. It means they haven’t grown, haven’t learned anything new about themselves, and are probably stuck in very unhealthy relationship patterns–both intrapersonally and interpersonally. High school, at best, helps set the baseline for who we were and plants the seeds for who we can become.

What we do with those seeds, how far we rise from that baseline (or sink below it), is up to us. It’s what happens when we really get out on our own, when we decide which influences we’re going to accept and which we’re going to shrug off as unimportant or detrimental.

At it’s worst, high school lets us know exactly what we don’t want to be part of. It stings us so badly and disgusts us so much that we seek to turn our backs on it as useless and horrid. Even at its most horrid, though, it serves as an inspiration–a motivator to ensure we never go back to anything resembling that state of development.

High school is part of the baggage we carry with us into every relationship. For some, it’s a small tote and for others it’s a steamer trunk or three. It’s part of what either held us back or spurred us forward along the path to who we are now. It’s part of the last bit of generally shared experience for most Americans… something that we can all talk about together and be able to compare notes.

Love it or hate it, high school is part of who we are.

And it’s one of the biggest reasons I write about what I do.

Tags: growth, high school, relationships