We have all had them. They are not a thing reserved for the young. In fact, I will say they are a bright spot in aging. The ability to see someone from afar and make up all kinds of stories about them in your head and fantasize about what they might be like, what it would be like to have them in your world.
I think though to some degree they become rarer as you age because all the barriers to contact vaporize. It is so easy to meet and actualize any potential. How often do we find ourselves attracted to someone over a protracted period of time and do nothing about it? Rarely. The world of dating and attraction seems to require a clearing. Pressure to meet, date, and move on. Sometimes that is all dating feels like to me: a great clearinghouse of men. It is not a good feeling.
There was this guy I met about a decade ago. He was in town for business. We had one lovely date and then he returned to his life half way across the country. And we have stayed in sporadic contact over the intervening ten years. Still have the crush, which is actually kind of an amazing thing. To hold onto positive vibes for someone for that long. We have become friends and it has been great to see his life expand and grow from a distance.
I think I would like to bring back the whole crush thing...delay the gratification instead of always scratching the itch. And by that I do not mean sex, but instead, mean that sometimes getting to know someone should take a decade or so. An intimacy develops that feels comforting and safe. Even though I am not privy to his everyday life, there is something stable and constant in our relational exchange.
I have always, and continue to want good things for him. And he, I. He a source of support always. It is kind of nice to feel like someone you only had the briefest of contact with (and no, not that kind of contact) could and would still be around in your life all these years later as a force of positive and constancy.
I love that I can be this many years old and still crush on some guy. And vice versa. There is no reason that either one of us could not push the envelope further, and yet, neither of us ever does. The crush is the thing that is capable of spanning time and distance whereas dating quickly ruins all of that. Reality can be such a downer.
In our world of immediacy and incessant gratification, the idea that you can be attracted to and crush on someone for over a decade is kind of fucking cool. Something healing and youthful about that which at this age feels pretty fucking good.
The older I get the more I value the people in my life who have refused to allow me to burn through them, or I them. Those slow burn people, some of them crushes, some of them just people that you find fascinating or interesting or splendidly weird, can remain in your circle, if only on a very outer perimeter.
I love the fact that despite the passage of time and the looming distance and the intervening relationships we have both endured and enjoyed, a connection still exists which makes me believe in things like destiny and souls and fate and love. Don’t get me wrong, I am not writing some love story here, just saying that I really enjoy the depth that occurs between people when immediate gratification is placed on a very slow pace. So much in life is in the anticipation, even if it never, ever comes to fruition.
Crushes are quite a bit of fun if you can remain detached enough from outcomes to enjoy them. That is not always possible, the demand and desire for requited possession seems to often kill most of these types of things before they even get off the ground. Today, I am just enjoying the idea of a somewhat innocent crush that has spanned the last decade. The fact that I am pretty sure it is reciprocal makes it even better.
There is so much pleasure in taking action. But times like this remind me that there is so much pleasure in not taking action also. Sometimes the smoldering is better than the fanning of flames because when it smolders time stretches out before you like an expanse, there are no hurried agendas or places to get to. You just allow feeling to unfurl and wave around a bit.
There is only a tenuous possession in crushing. You have the desire to have them belong to you, but they never really do. They, instead, exist in this other galaxy where they are yours and you theirs that may never ever come into actual being. But oh what fun it is to think about, to dream about and to engage the fantasy in rich and laborious detail once more...
Again...still.
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