I don’t want to get into the details (anyway, it was a long time ago), but they certainly acted that way. But perhaps you are right.
Ed
I’ve only experienced a crush once in my life. It was when I was about 25 and had met a ‘friend of a friend’. At first we were just friends. But then I quickly came to realize I had some major hots for her. MAJOR. I started hanging out with her as often as possible. Dressing up much more than I usually would. She seemed to enjoy the time together but I wasn’t really feeling any ‘vibes’ back. I was having major self esteem issues at the time and had nearly zero dating experience either. But finally, my stupidity took control and I decided to tell her I liked her.
Thank GOD I decided to do it online over IM. It was just horrid. The declaration and then silence from her. Long, painful silence. Finally she responded with the “I like you but not like that” and I was just perfectly humiliated. I couldn’t talk to her or even be near her for YEARS. Which was hard given we had mutual friends who liked having big get togethers. I finally got over the humiliation enough to end up being a roomie with her and one other friend but I still always felt it deep down.
So if I should ever ever have a crush again (highly unlikely) I am going to remain completely silent. I don’t want to go through that again.
Worst crush I ever had? BEST crush I ever had.
At 14, I hated him. By 15, I loved him. At 19 I belonged to him. By 20, I was broken by him. I truly loved this man.
At 37, I was wound around him so tightly, neither of us could think straight. He’ll be home in about an hour…
Yeah, 25 years. Through each of our marriages to the wrong people, we both quietly loved each other. He went out and did all the things he needed to do, saw all the things he needed to see. One fateful night, I reached for a Pepsi at a gas station, and it was all over. Yep. Best. Crush. EVER!
I never knew what a crush felt like until I was 26 and began working with the most beautiful woman I have ever known. She was well aware of how I felt and wasn’t above teasing me from time to time. There was nothing I wouldn’t have done for her and so forth----but one day, she sat me down after work and told me the old standard “can’t we just be friends” line. I decided that was going to be the best I’d ever have from her and accepted it; that was 42 years ago and we’re still friends; I doubt I’ve ever had a better one.
Well, there was that fixation on Linda Ronstadt in later years, but I put that down to dope and wine and all. For a while, though, I really wanted to be one of her tee shirts. But I’m much better now.
When I was 16 I took a job in a local factory for the summer. It was hot, dirty, didn’t pay much, and I lasted all of a week.
But one day, I saw this young Hispanic woman working on one of the machines. She was wearing old, torn and stained clothes. She had her hair tucked up under her hard hat. She wore no makeup, no jewelry, and looked utterly bored.
And_she_was_just_stunning. My knees literally buckled for a moment. I couldn’t even imagine what she’d look like if she put on a dress, did her hair, and so on.
We got lots of migrant workers at that factory, and there’s a good chance that she would be there for a few months and then move on. There’s also a good chance she didn’t speak English. The next day she had on a tee shirt with a picture of two kids on it—I presume they were hers. So maybe she had a husband as well.
And I was 16…talk about no chance! 
I ended up quitting because the money just wasn’t great. So at least I forgot about her quickly :dubious::smack:
You know the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where the students are all hanging on Indy’s words, and one of the girls has “Love You” written on her eyelids?
I had that teacher. He was brilliant and gorgeous (and married), and all the girls and a number of the boys knew it. We crushed en masse.
Which was bad enough, but… he liked me. As a student/protege. Which meant that he gave way more freely of his office hours in my direction than was probably good for me. And he was too damn smart not to be aware that I was among the crushing masses. Thank goodness he was also too decent to ever mention the embarrassing all-consuming nature of said crush.* I imagine after teaching for many years he was used to it.
*The topic of sexual harassment claims against teachers did come up, and it was made obliquely clear that he trusted me to spend hours in his office without the risk of any such b.s… That only made me crush harder. Guh.
There’s nothing wrong with that. I had a girl crush on her for years.
A crush observed in passing:
Some years ago I was sitting at a lunch counter in Hollywood. The waitress was young, blonde, reasonably pretty and vivacious.
Sitting at the stool next to me was a most crushed young man, apparently from her home town or home state, somewhere in the South, and totally besotted with her. She was cheerful and polite to him, but she was the same to all the customers. I half listened to his desperate moans of undying love for her which she apparently had no intention of taking seriously.
One thing he said stuck with me all these years: “No one else would be such a fool for you.”
Well, actually it was “sech a fewl fer yew”, but I think I translated it correctly. I felt so sorry for the poor guy, but for all I know he was enjoying being able to bask in her presence, albeit in such a non-romantic setting.
Years later he came to mind when I read this deathless prose from Richard Brautigan:
“I would walk a mile in the snow on a freezing morning if I could stand barefoot in your shit.”
Ahh, young love!
My biggest crush just showed back up after almost seven years.
Life is good.
When I was in high school I had a gig playing flute for a summer theater production of the musical “Once Upon A Mattress.” I generally arrived very early for rehearsal, as did “Harold,” a student one year old than me who played one of the knights.
Harold and I would talk while waiting for rehearsals to start, and we clicked immediately. He was like no boy I had ever met before. He was sensitive! He liked classical music! He could talk about poetry! He was gentle, not macho at all!
Oh, the tears I cried over Harold’s total obliviousness to me as anything more than a friend. There were literally piles of soggy tissue heaped by my bed every morning because I sobbed myself to sleep.
Over a decade later, after I had long since moved away, I discovered that Harold was apparently fond of regaling his friends with tales of how I used to moon after him, absolutely blind to the fact he was GAY!!! GAY, YOU STUPID BINT!!!
That doesn’t say much for Harold as a person - as I realized when I finally did get over my crush on him, he was something of an ass - but I can’t work up any outrage over his poor behavior, because I can just imagine how comical I must have been. I had the hots for him so bad, I only barely stopped short of grabbing his hand and rubbing my crotch with it.
Huh. Maybe I should have. It might have clarified matters for me a little sooner.
I married mine.
Mistake.
I was in mad love with this boy named Chuck Sprunger in high school, and would swoon whenever he was in the vicinity, but unfortunately one day I was too focused on doing the dance moves to “Thriller” in my best friend’s driveway to notice him pull up on his 10-speed. I was never so mortified in all my life. The way he looked right through me made me realize he would never love me back (especially after that) so the whole crush kind of snuffed out instantaneously.
Brutal.
Ewww, did he go around sprunging for information all the time?
I am a serial crusher. I developed my first crush at the tender age of 5 and had a new one every year or so. That finally tapered off after I completely finished school. And I have an obsessive personality. No, I wasn’t crazy stalker girl. I was so shy and humiliated by the very fact that I had these feelings that I put as much distance between me and the object of my affection as possible. BUT I really gave myself over to these crushes, completely. Still, there were two more notable than all the rest.
The first was Tyler. What can I say about Tyler? He was beautiful. He had curly blond hair, and beautiful blue eyes, and the sweetest smile you ever saw. He was two years older than me and thus out of my reach. I don’t remember the first time I saw Tyler, but I was in sixth grade and he was in eighth grade. He played the guitar. He loved the Beatles. I loved the Beatles. And just seeing him in the hallway was enough to wreck me for the entire day. It was an extra-special treat. On days when i was very lucky, he’d get out his guitar and play it for his friends. The boy was talented. Spurned on by certain stories a friend of mine told me, I called him a few times and spoke to him on the phone about music and the Beatles. In hindsight, I can’t believe how stupid I was. I’m blushing a little bit now thinking about it. Still, he intoxicated me. It took me a very, very long time to get over that one. After my sixth grade year, I nursed this crush for another year, but our paths never really crossed, so I grudgingly moved on. A few years later, when I was sophomore and he was a senior, we ended up in the same art class. It made me laugh that I finally had what I wanted–an excuse to stare at his beautiful face for an hour. To be near him. To listen to him talk. And by then I had completely lost interest. He was barely a blip on my radar even though he was practically within touching distance. Still, I found him on Facebook a few weeks ago, and I got a little thrill of pleasure, like the times I used to pass him in the hall.
The second was a boy named Nathan. I met him while I was in college, after I was married. I knew nothing would ever come of it, so I indulged the crush. He played guitar, too, and he sang like an angel. He was an amazing actor. He was an English major like me, so we could actually discuss writing and literature. He was wicked smart. He had a killer sense of humor. He was good looking. Hell, my husband even had a crush on this guy. He dated one girl for a few years and they broke up because she cheated on him. I was genuinely shocked. I know he wasn’t a saint but he’s not the sort of guy people cheat on. He was also one of the best friends I had. We lost track after graduation because I went east and he went south. It’s my dearest wish that he shows up on facebook sometime. I’m over the crush now, but I miss his frienship something awful.
I just thank god I never had any professors that were handsome/sexy enough to be crush-worthy. I’m a teacher’s pet to teachers I don’t even particularly like. I can’t imagine the damage I could cause myself over a professor.
My only real crush started when I met this guy on a college visit. We had everything in common, and he was a freshman, only one year older than me. I’d never fallen hard for someone before, and it shocked me with how all-consuming my obsession could be. It’s embarrassing, but I have to admit that he factored in (a teeny tiny bit) to my decision of where to attend college. (I made the right choice, FTR, so no regrets there.) We stayed in touch by email all summer, even though I had to go to my best friend’s house for internet access. I spent most of my waking minutes imagining the various ways he might sweep me off my feet and decide to spend the rest of his life with me–I could’ve filled novels with all my fantasy scenarios. After weeks of self-doubt and agony, I finally called him and we set up a meeting for when we both moved onto campus. I saw him again after all those months, and he was even better than I’d remembered. It was heaven.
And then, the next day, he introduced me to his girlfriend.
The bad part is that it didn’t stop there. They were on rocky ground, so I always had hope. He spent weeks asking and de-asking me to a school formal dance, because he was on-again-off-again with her, and he would need me to fill in if they were “off.” We ended up going to the formal together, and again, it was heaven.
And then it was hell again. I stuck around for a few more months as his shoulder to cry on and wing-woman for all the partying he would do when he and his girlfriend were fighting. Nothing more, though–we never got the slightest bit physical except this one night we (fairly platonically, to my great chagrin) slept in the same bed. At the downtown Hilton, too! Long story.
About five months after moving to college, things were starting to get bad. I started to see him for the manipulative and douchebaggy person he really was. He seriously took advantage of my affections, and for whatever reason, he wouldn’t return them. Not to me, at least–at parties, he would hook up with other girls and I would go home. I met the guy who would later become my husband, and I ended up writing my crush a long letter telling him all about why we probably shouldn’t hang out any more. He spent a long time protesting, claiming I was just being weird, but I persisted and we cut off contact. He spread some rumors about me and was openly malicious, getting me removed from a position in a school organization we had both joined. I talked a lot of shit about him too, and strangely enough, I found out that I was in good company. Everyone had sleazy stories about the guy, and I’d been blind to all the crap he pulled and people he’d alienated over time.
I’m truly better off for my love having been unrequited. And the things I learned about relationships and people (I can’t even begin to go into detail on this, because it’s vast) are worth almost all of the blood, sweat, and tears I shed over him.
I’m kind of happy when I have little crushes these days. Sure, it’s painful. But they keep me sharp, make me feel human, and remind me what a great marriage I have.
I can’t believe I didn’t think immediately of this crush: My english professor in art school. He wore courderoy jackets with suede elbow patches and Harry Potter-style glasses. He was gorgeous with salt/pepper hair and a nutty-yet-totally-able-to-get-passionately-serious personality. He made me fall in love with writing. I took every class with him that I could. He gave me a book by my favorite author my junior year, which I still have. The night before my final project was due, I found out my boyfriend was cheating on me. I didn’t finish the project and begged tearfully in his office the next day not to fail me. He gave me a B-. The next summer after I graduated, I became friends with the dean’s wife at some kind of opening, and admitted my crush over cocktails. She arranged for us both to attend a get-together at their house. I remember speaking to him there, but I was so scared to death that I hardly remember any of it. Somehow he got my number and called, and we went on 3 dates. Casual dates to a movie, a museum, and dinner, I think. I was so scared that I hardly remember any of it. On the third date we went up to my apartment and started making out. He got one of my socks off. I was so scared that I pushed him off of me and ended the evening, and thusly ended the romance. I still have the postcard from him that said, “It wasn’t you, it was me.” I was just way too young (and too petrified) to get involved in such a mature relationship like that.
But hot damn, what an awesome dream come true to date my college professor crush.
Forward a few months later to me sitting in the laundry room of my apartment building flipping through a random fashion magazine left on a table there, and whose name do I see as the author of an article about his inability to really be in a long-term relationship? His. Whoa. I still have that magazine, too.
Sigh of all sighs…
Only one person came to my mind. Man what I crush I had. He sat next to me on the school bus once and I literally quivered all the way home. We knew each other but I don’t think at that time he knew how hot I was for his bod 
I never was able to close the deal with him but I was only 14, 15 and hadn’t had time to hone my feminine wiles yet. He looked a lot like Johnny Depp. I think that’s at least half the reason I like Johnny Depp as much as I do. He still lives in the old neighborhood, so I do visit him occasionally, we’re friendly but not close.
I was a high school freshman and he was a senior, with wavy auburn hair and GREEN eyes. I wrote his name on every single notebook/folder/scrap of paper I possessed. He graduated, joined the Navy, and came back dressed in his white bell-bottom sailor’s uniform. SWOON!! I have no idea where he is now.
In college, I had an astronomy prof that had an Australian accent. He wasn’t that handsome, but I crushed on that voice! Anything he said was fascinating to listen to, I thought. I baked him cookies, brownies, made him homeade mulled cider. He probably gained 10 pounds that semester.
My first crush was in 5th grade. Her name was Penny and she was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. She was short, had long brown, straight hair, and eyes to die for. It lasted pretty much through high school. I never once told her how I felt and looking back I probably should have because she never dated anyone as far as I could tell. We graduated and went our separate ways.
We had our 20 yr class reunion 2 yrs ago. I saw her and wouldn’t you know she was more beautiful than ever. I managed to tell her about my schoolboy crush I had on her. She was very pleasantly surprised.
She was so damn beautiful and sang so wonderfully that she took my breath away; she was the only celebrity that was ever the subject of any of my fantasies.