The anatomy of a crush

“So you didn’t finish telling me about the crush,” V said while downing the great last meal - buffalo chicken wings, waffle fries and PBR, our last weekly ritual before two months without my NSGGBF.

“Oh, I am over it.”

“But it just started last night and you were all up in arms about it.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t crush that often and when I do it is usually very short lived.”

“The life span of a fruit fly?”

I would have said that of a lighting bug locked in a mason jar without air or escape but that is just me and maybe that says too much.

It is true though that crushing has really never been my thing, not in the traditional sense. Typically I get an idea about someone, vet them through my mental gauntlet and by the end of their thirty second run in my brain they are decapitated.

I suppose it is not as gory as it sounds but it is as rigorous. As quickly as I can become intrigued by someone I can find a reason to get un-intrigued. I realize this is sick and something I should probably address with my therapist if my work ever changes back our insurances to something that would make it affordable.

I ponder, my hamster doing a fifty yard dash on the wheel in my brain, “Would they fit in with my family, could I have a conversation with them about art, have they ever voted for a Bush?”

There are far more shallow lines of questioning like could I ever see myself attacking a plate of Buffalo wings in front of this person or making the type of perverse jokes that makes V say, “This is why you are a way better friend than you are a girlfriend.”

This goes on as long as it needs to, which sometimes is no longer than it takes a pretty blue-eyed boy to ask me how tall I am.

If on the rare occasion someone makes it through this mental scouring, then it is just a waiting game. I sleep on it. See if it is there in the morning. I figure if it is, then I will be forced to deal with it and dealing will most likely require a palette of make-up and wax for more of my body than should be legal. Luckily, it doesn’t get that far too often.

On this occasion it lasted a whole 48 hours. V was disturbed. I was unimpressed.

Crushing is one of those things in life that just doesn’t happen that often. It requires a certain level of anonymity, of mystery. Not like being friends with someone and slowly developing feelings, at least not in my definition. It just pops up out of no where like a chemical reaction. I fear I have to know people a little better to even notice they are alive - something I suppose I should also discuss with my shrink.

It was entertaining, however, despite being short lived. I can’t remember the last time I had an actual crush...high school, I think. It was a fun ride, one that has left me cheering, “Again, again!”