I’m an obsessive type.
So when I get a crush I want to throw in the towel and simply stay eternally devoted whether or not the devotion is returned.
Really liking a man can feel like enough. Like nothing else at all is needed.
Why can the feeling of adoring a man feel like enough?
Because it can feel very freeing.
Most people are constraining. Because I have to achieve a level of cooperation with them, which can mean I have to be more polite than I want to be. More considerate than I want to be.
Less selfish than I want to be.
But when I have genuine affection for a person caring for them is a pleasure. Giving to them feels like a gift to myself.
All the energy I usually don’t want to part with seems to cycle back to me to the tenth power when I give to a person I adore.
So getting to be in the state of having an intense crush is like having chains removed.
Or like having more oxygen added to the air.
Or perhaps it’s like taking methamphetamine. I’ve never tried it so I wouldn’t know.
But the energy given to me by simply really liking a person, especially when it’s attraction man, is extreme and it is therefore extremely addictive.
What I have noticed about my crushes is they don’t come from nowhere.
My very first crush was on my martial arts instructor. Because of my crush on him, I worked very hard on martial arts.
Not just to be around him. I emulated what I liked about him. I copied it and I kept it to a degree.
He had a lot of energy and he not only worked hard, he stayed calm while he worked hard.
That was the attraction. The calmness in the face of intense effort.
That was something I wasn’t good at. Calmness.
Now I’m good at it.
I had an intense crush on my first boyfriend before he became my boyfriend.
He had many great qualities. But what I most took with me when we eventually parted ways was his ability be clean, organized and efficient with his life.
Going grocery shopping with him was something I’d never experienced. In five minutes we had everything done and he could make that one stop at the store with the few items he got into several fantastic meals.
I who was incredibly disorganized and chaotic was obsessed with his efficiency.
Eventually I was able to copy it to a degree and now my life is better.
I don’t always know initially what is causing me to feel an intense attraction to another human being.
But it’s always something.
It’s never nothing.
It’s never shallow is what I mean to say.
It comes from somewhere real.
Does an intense attraction equal compatibility or a good long term relationship?
No.
Crushes go through stages. Intense attraction to a man can be very fun to explore but it doesn’t mean it will go beyond an admiration of one single particular trait.
Sometimes it’s as simple as that.
I find one thing very impressive but there’s nothing for me beyond that one thing.
Sometimes it does go beyond that and the crush turns into a bond.
A bond is quite different than a crush.
When I have a bond with someone I can see their flaws and I’ve accepted their flaws. I can even help compensate for their flaws.
But it’s still not the same thing as a relationship.
The relationship is its own separate phase where things go much deeper and get much messier.
I’ve gone the deepest and the darkest with friends and family. That’s where I’ve really faced the demons in me and tried to reconcile with them.
But I’ve yet to go that deep with a man.
My first two boyfriends did help me face many things in myself and drastically improved my life but we parted ways long before we ever went too deep.
My friends and family however have seen those really ugly parts and have had to deal with me at those ugly levels.
And thinking about it on these terms makes it easier to understand why having a crush can feel so freeing that it’s almost like taking crack.
Jess lanai 