[Breezy]

Originally Posted by IslandScout

My ideal crush...

I can't follow in step with the posts I'm seeing here, as heartfelt and thoughtful as they seem.

That's because I think people are talking about crushes as if having a crush is synonymous with falling in love, or an indicator of someone they could care about.

But falling in love is not what I'm talking about, when I talk about a crush. I'm not saying one definition is better than the other, I'm just saying mine is different.

To crush on someone, all they have to do is answer a need, fill a gap that exists at that particular time in my life.

For example, if I am feeling invisible, and someone makes me feel visible, I might very well crush on that person. If I am feeling unappreciated sexually, and they appreciate me sexually, even in a cyber way, I might crush on that person.

On the Internet it's easy for me to crush in this way, because there are no distractions, like what the person looks, sounds and feels like in person. It can just be about that one pure need-being-met phenomenon.

It has happened to me every time I've entered a new social website community. I'm just as vulnerable to it now as I've always been.

And I don't think it's a bad thing at all, this experience that I'm identifying as a crush.

But it isn't the same as falling in love.

If I am going to fall in love with you, you have to do more than answer some un-met need in me. If I am going to love you, I have to admire, adore and be fascinated by your inner and outer self. I have to see how you interact with others, how you treat people who have less power than you, how consistent you are, in your behavior; how reflective and honest you are.

The turn this Thread has taken has made me realize I'm not working with the same core of expectations about what it means to have a crush.

But it is good to see what the Thread has done, which is to have encouraged people to reflect on what will trigger their initial attraction to a person they might consider dating, and could maybe love. Or at least that's what I think I'm hearing. And what it's done for me is make me think a lot about how love starts and what makes it go away. That's what I got out of the crush thread. I feel glad for that.

I hear you, darlin. Crushing for me is very similar. I do leave myself open for interpretation by others here. Please do not think you have incompatible views. Some view crushes one way and others of us view them another. It's all good.

I am glad to know I am not the only one who views a crush as not being in love or necessarily leading to being in love. I have to know a person well, in person, through at least a year or two.