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 TCW's Amy Cohen is a crush addict and not afraid to admit it.
I have an addiction. I’ve been a serial crusher since middle school, and I have no intention of stopping anytime soon.
I love the feeling of having a crush. I love the way my stomach does little flips when I catch his eye from across the room, I love the way my heart pounds when I run into him randomly around campus, and I really love the fact that there’s a chance that I could make something happen. I just don’t love when the feeling goes away, and that usually happens right around the time he returns my interest.
For me, and for many of my friends who’ve experienced this phenomenon, the death of a crush due to reciprocated interest is a frustrating and damaging occurrence. After spending all that time obsessing over how perfect this person would be for you, they go and shatter the dream by returning your affections. How dare they!? So what should you do when the feeling dies and you’re left on the other side of those one-sided feelings?
You should give them a chance.
It sounds like common sense; however, the number of potential partners that are dismissed for stupid reasons would surprise most people. For example, I have a friend who pined over a guy for weeks. When he finally started returning her advances, all she did was bitch about how annoyingly clingy he was acting. Had she remembered all the reasons she felt the way she did in the first place, she might have realized that there really was something worth pursuing.
This reaction could pretty much be explained by the thrill of the “chase.” The anticipation of seeing the object of your affections, the excitement you feel whenever you interact, and the intense euphoria you feel afterward all contribute to the “game” of having a crush. Half the fun is the rush you get whenever you even so much as think of them, and the other half is wondering if they know, or even better, if they feel the same way.
So now we’re back to our original problem. And you’re stuck frustrated and wondering where those feelings went now that you’ve gotten what you wanted. Simply stated, its fear. You’ve gone so long believing that this crush could never become something real, and now that it has the possibility, you don’t know how to handle it. The easiest way to deal with it, is get over it and move on, leaving you free to lock on your next target and start the crush cycle all over again.
Getting addicted to the feeling of butterflies in your stomach is easy. The hard part is letting that feeling go and breaking the cycle. In all honesty, crushing is fun. And I’m not willing to break the cycle yet, because let’s face it, it’s more fun this way.
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