The Crushes of Life

Don't you just luv a good crush? Or at least, wish you could?

Crushes. Who ain't had at least one in their lives? No one I know can claim to have been immune to the allure of a crush. What creates them, what feeds them, why they sometimes pass and sometimes last a lifetime, is anyones' guess.

A psychiatrist will charge you hundreds of dollars an hour to answer that, so it's cheaper I leave that one alone.

Over the years, I've had my crushes: one on an elementary school classmate (ette); that's one I not only got over, I'm damned to explain what the heck I was thinking back then.

Answer: I was a kid; I wasn't.

I had others through the junior high/high school years. None of them I ever got to date; none of them I ever got to know particularly well. And just as unexpectedly as they came, they went.

One I dated for an extended period in college; but she really didn't qualify as a crush; she, I was head-over-heels in love with, and I was never near that limber, then or later. To this day, I miss her, and wish I'd been the better man at the moment of decision more than 20 years ago.

But I wasn't, and she remains the mythical "one that got away". Lucky her.

But a few other 'crushes' have lingered over the years: two of those pictured above, I adored growing up, watching them on their respective sitcoms. Even now, my knees would buckle to meet either, though my youthful 'crush' has since matured into...an adultly 'crush'? To fantasize about knowing them in their primes, with me in mine...oh well. Missed it by that much.

Well, perhaps a wee more.

And of course I've known other crushes: the other two pictured above are local news celebs who I could reasonably say I have something of a crush on, though neither is available, let alone knows (or cares) I exist. Nor am I willing to go to John Hinckley lengths to let 'em know it.

It ain't much of a life I lead, but I like that what it is, thank ye.

I had other celeb crushes, too: Heather Locklear. Shania Twain. Sandra Bullock. Meg Ryan. Roseanne Barr.

Just kidding on that last one; seeing if y'all were paying attention or not. Roseanne Barr? Ewwwwwwwww.

Occasionally, one can be accused of having a crush on someone: a coworker, friend, peer. And it needn't be limited to physically present: the Internet is a whole new world in which to develop crushes, real and imagined. My pet rock, Seymour, has two online crushes (one in TX, one in Japan; you both know who you are).

Recently, I was told that I had an online crush. Don't you just hate when you're the last to find out these things? I know I do. But then, I'm kinda slow in these things. Someone else described it as chickensh** overcautiousness brought on by previous experience and a faux hope that one of my above-pictured crushes will discover me in the eleventh hour, but I digress deliberately.

At any rate, I have to admit that it might have some fact to it: she is accomplished, attractive, and has at least one screw loose, 'cuz she likes me. I could do worse. Hecky darn poo....I have. And another advantage to it: for folks to think that I have a crush on this person, suggests that they think I have great taste; it doesn't necessarily say as much for this person's taste, but that's my brutally candid modesty talking and another matter entirely.

But, as I said, it only might have some fact to it. After all, were it true and I admitted to it, I might open up a flood of cyberstalkers, speculators and competitors. This might not be good (though, like tweaking my Nigerian 419 scamsters, it might be kinda fun, sorta). Relationships are complicated enough, without adding in the enigmatic factor of rogue human screwiness, aka the obsessive cyberstalker, or some Fatal Attractionesque person of obsessive/compulsive tendencies.

Not to mention, my own oft-expressed issue with someone who is technically a GUD*.

Then again...it might have some fact to it.

Unless/until Barbara, Dawn, Kim or Cheryl discover me.

Yeah, right. Seymour will learn to dance the waltz, first.

* Geographically UnDesirable