Sometimes, I like to tell my friends that I fall in love at least a dozen times a day. I tend to get a lot of weird looks and people yelling at me when I say things like that. I obviously don’t mean that I daily go through the complicated process that might end in marriage or that I think the real falling in love thing requires no social interaction.
What I mean by it, then, is that I develop crushes like nobody’s business. Are you an artist? Then I probably have a crush on you. Are you a musician? Then I probably have a crush on you. Can you speak intelligently and convincingly about something? Then I probably have a crush on you. Are you driven? Then I probably have a crush on you. Are you passionate about something? Then I probably have a crush on you. Do you consistently love people in really big, awesome ways? Well, you get the idea…
Believe me, I understand how silly all of this is.
But, a crush is simply defined as an “usually temporary infatuation.” And this is what my crushes signify. It’s not that I believe I could spend the rest of my life with almost every woman I meet or even that I believe I could successfully navigate a relationship with them, it’s that there are things about almost every woman my age that I find temporarily infatuating.
And then I got to thinking. Right now, these “crushes” are really unproductive. I recognize them as “crushes.” Society tells me that crushes are important. I don’t want relationships with all crushes. I avoid until crush is over. Silly.
I figured out a way to make crushes really productive though: I recognize them as things about people that I really admire and like. I tell the person in question about her quality that I really admire and like and why I admire and like it. I spread good cheer. Awesome.
See, I do that last strategy with my male friends all the time, or I like to think that I do. I tell them that I love them and when they do something awesome, I tell them. But I’m all jittery about doing it with my female friends, mostly because I think when I recognize something cool in them, it means I’m crushing. It’s probably time to graduate junior high.
What types of things make you “crush”?
Spencer J Smith 
It means you love people and you probably don’t judge them very much. Enjoy the crushes – just don’t talk about them so much. You will probably live the rest of your life enjoying others.
Thanks, John!
Spencer, I know exactly what you mean, and I think Hemingway did, too:
“A girl came in the café and sat by herself at a table near the window. She was very pretty with a face fresh as a newly minted coin if they minted coins in smooth flesh with rain-freshened skin, and her hair was black as a crow’s wing and cut sharply and diagonally across her cheek.
I looked at her and she disturbed me and made me very excited. I wished I could put her in the story, or anywhere, but she had placed herself so she could watch the street and the entry and I knew she was waiting for someone. So I went on writing.
The story was writing itself and I was having a hard time keeping up with it. I ordered another rum St. James and I watched the girl whenever I looked up, or when I sharpened the pencil with a pencil sharpener with the shavings curling into the saucer under my drink.
I’ve seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil.
Then I went back to writing and I entered far into the story and was lost in it. I was writing it now and it was not writing itself and I did not look up nor know anything about the time nor think where I was nor order any more rum St. James. I was tired of rum St. James without thinking about it. Then the story was finished and I was very tired. I read the last paragraph and then I looked up and looked for the girl and she had gone. I hope she’s gone with a good man, I thought. But I felt sad. ” – from chapter 1 of A Moveable Feast
Miles Davis also has a beautiful song on this subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK8JlTlhnjw
I love Hemingway and Miles Davis. I’m glad that I’m in great company. Trent, Hemingway, and Miles. Wonderful. Also, props to the fake e-mail name.