Just out of curiosity (not planning anything or nuthin’), has anybody ever gotten together at least somewhat long-term with somebody who they had a serious crush on? How did it go? Was it the hottest relationship you ever had, or was the reality somewhat disappointing compared to the fantasy?
I had built her up so much in my mind that I was paralyzed with fear the entire time.
I had an unrequited crush on a girl (“M”) all through high school. She wasn’t cheerleader popular, but quite cute in a girl-next-door kind of way, and a straight-A student from a solid middle class family. I was a lower middle-class slacker with no social confidence. So the thought of asking her for a date was absolutely out of the question.
Going to the 20-year reunion, I couldn’t help but think about M. But I was sure she’d either be happily married, or not all that hot anymore.
Wrong on both counts.
M had not aged one damn bit. This was not just my opinion, because she was voted one of the six classmates who’d changed the least.
And when I got close enough to see, she didn’t appear to have a date or be wearing a ring.
I went over to talk to her, and she was quite receptive. We exchanged phone numbers, and ended up dating – off and on – for several years. The whole time, I felt like I’d stumbled into some far-fetched, live-your-youth-over again movie.
We lived six hours apart, and had careers that prevented relocating, so it didn’t work out in the long run.
But it was one of the most satisfying relationships of my life.
I was struck dumb with love at first sight. I worked with her a handful of times (she was one of my volunteers). I actually wrote down her phone number off some paperwork but never got the guts to call (Plus I thought it was kind of sketchy to just call out of the blue). I didn’t see her again for almost a year but thought about her a lot.
By that time she was working at the place on a project and I had been let go but was coming back to help on specific projects from time to time. We started chatting a lot at work when permitted. I had such a crush on her and I was convinced she was horribly out of my league. Our last day working was the same but I had to leave early that day and kept missing my chance to ask her out. Eventually I had to go. I found out the next day that two of my co-workers gave her my number. Two weeks later, on my last day in the apartment I was living in and about an hour before my phone was cut off… she called and asked me out. It is still the only time in my life I have ever been asked out by a girl.
We dated (seeing eachother everyone other day) for a month before she moved to another state and joined the peace corps.
It was the happiest month of my life… it wasn’t until I had some distance (okay a few days after I took her to the airport) to realize I was way more into her than she was into me. I think she thought I was a nice enough guy to hang out with and let kiss her a bit for the time she had left in Seattle. I think she was also very lonely. In the few years she had lived there she hadn’t made any friends other than her roommate who she was barely speaking to at the time she moved.
So, great at the time. Really kind of heart breaking in hindsight. But I am serious when I say I still consider that the best month of my life. She is stilly physically and personality wise my ideal woman.
I did. It was one of the most thrilling, most intense times of my life, and I don’t regret it for an instant. I learned quite a bit about love and about myself.
That said, it didn’t end well.
Oh well. Live and learn, better to have loved and lost, and all that . . . At least I didn’t marry her. :o
I had a heavy crush on a boy I met at the city science fair in 1962. I was fourteen at the time, and he was fifteen. We went to different schools, and we were both rather reclusive, so nothing came of it (except a lot of fantasizing). Six years later we ran into each other again in college. Sparks flew. It was wonderful! Very nearly the best sex I’ve ever had; even though both of us lacked experience, we made up for it in intensity. We broke up because my father hated him, and I was too weak to tell Dad that it was none of his business.
Many years have passed, and I’ve maintained a friendship with this guy. Fortunately, my husband likes him too, and hubby is not the jealous or suspicious sort.
Yes, I did. In the end, my imagination exceeded reality. But that first kiss…was amazing.
Ahhhhh. My first wife.
As to how it worked out, I repeat. My first wife.
I could barely speak when he was there and when he flirted with me, I really couldn’t speak. I was exhilarated and terrified and 18 years old. One of my sweetest memories was making him laugh, just me, with no one else around. How I summoned the wit, I still don’t know.
He trasferred to another college, I got married, then divorced.
He recognized me on the street. I was 38 years old. Months of dancing around each other, we started to date. It was hot. It lasted about 6 weeks. He still calls and writes twice a year or so.
The physical part was better than any teenaged fantasy I ever daydreamed, but we both intensely wanted different things and I had two teeneagers I couldn’t discount. I miss him sometimes, but we were a very bad fit, as adults.
None of my legitimate relationships were with women whom I’d crushed on for long periods of time. They mostly seemed to just come out of nowhere.
Part of me thinks that’s probably a good thing, because they very likely wouldn’t have been as great as I’d built them up to be in my mind. May never know, though. :smack: :dubious:
Fascinating - it almost sounds like relationships and crushes are not coming from the same place.
Had a year-long committed relationship with an intense highschool crush roughly five years after highschool. We both had crushes on each other, but were never single at the same time. (Frustratingly, we kept staggering our singlehood, time after time. Getting into a longterm relationship with her best friend didn’t help matters any.)
It was great, but not different from any other longterm relationship I’ve had. Except for the fact that she was the most sexually compatible woman I’ve ever had the fortune to be with. We were both very into the same kinks, which is a bit of a downer, as most (though not all) women since are a bit of a letdown in comparison. (She was also smokin’ hot with a killer rack, so she set the bar pretty high.)
Emotionally, though, it wasn’t distinguishable from the longterm relationships that went from strangers to dating almost immediately.
Not so good. Awkward.
I don’t think it’s that so much as it is that many times the relationship develops before the crush has a chance to. I have no doubt that I would have developed an intense crush on my now-husband-- I had all the early warning signs–had he not felt the same way. So we ended up in a marriage instead, which has been lovely.
This is kind of an odd answer, but I crush really, really easily, and it’s often platonic. I just think people are really, really cool and tend to be facinated by one or two at a time. I probably have had 5-7 serious (platonic) crushes over the last five years. Of those, two have developed into strong friendships, one into a sort of ho-hum friendship, and the others drifted away. Make of that what you will.
That happens to me too! I meet men and women that I just love, in a perfectly platonic sense. But it feels just the same as a crush to me…without the physical part, of course. I think some people are just so insanely compatible with you that you can tell immediately, and when it happens, I personally become fascinated with them. Of the people that this has happened with in the past, two of them are my best friends, another is my SO, but another one is a singer in my SO’s jazz band that I don’t know very well, and probably never will. I’ve also had some fade away. I have no idea what that means either.
(Since I have no interest in the fairer sex myself, I tend to call these “girl-crushes” when it happens to be a girl that I’m fascinated with. 
Do you have a word for your opposite preference crushes, Manda JO? Also, did we go to high school together? You sound so much like a friend of mine that I’ve drifted away from, that I had a “girl-crush” on…)
Hmm, also a fascinating idea. My husband and I met over an internet dating site, so we went from strangers to relationship, basically, but if I had worked with him or something, I also have no doubt that I would have developed a serious crush on him.
(I also develop crushes very easily. I don’t think I ever go very long without at least one or two platonic crushes on the go. They aren’t anything I ever want to go further - I think it’s just my way of making life more interesting.)
At the risk of sounding cliched, it’s not so much that as that if you’re going to have a relationship with a crush, you’d better be prepared to watch her fall off that pedastal you placed her on. I don’t think that the object of my crush was so bad. It was just such a shock to find out that she was human after all with all the frailties and faults inherent. I’m quite sure she was shocked herself at what I was capable of. If you can stand to see the human behind each other’s godlike aura chances are good that things will work out. Otherwise the relationship doesn’t stand a chance.
I’ll tell ya’, between dating Ellie and reading the Dune trilogy, I’ve come to distrust pedastals. I actually prefer the fallible human nowadays.
Yes, once in my life. I was hopelessly enamored of her.
It had no future, we both realized it, both knew it was only a temporary thing, and that made so much the sweeter.
This has been my experience too. I have had several intense crushes, mostly when I was much younger, and several serious relationships, mostly when I was older, and there was pretty much no overlap between the two.
My last two relationships (including that with my now wife) went pretty quickly from total strangers to fully involved and long term.
Yes, and we’re still happily together 3 years later.