During my solitary walks down the streets and avenues of downtown Ottawa, I have time to think to myself about things which are remarkable to myself only.
On the walk home from class today I ruminated on the notion of crushes and infatuation. Anyone who knows me knows that I develop crushes on people for the most inane reasons-take, for example, the girl who works at the bakery on Elgin Street. She was quite comely, with a pleasant air about her (read: she was cute in the indie sort of way, so if I spoke with her I’d turn into a gibbering mass of idiot. Also, she works at a bakery. I have a thing for girls who work in “unusual” places… but this tangent has gone on too long, so back to the story). When I went to pay for my slice of lemon loaf, she glanced at my wallet and her eyes grew to the size of pie plates. “I used to have that wallet!” she exclaimed. Immediately my crush on her grew to the size of a small planet (or maybe not, considering Pluto isn’t one anymore), and Nana’s Postulate was set into motion. This postulate states: if Nana’s crush exceeds the size of a small moon or fully-armed and operational battle station, then Nana believes girl loves him. The step after this is usually something stupid and embarassing, so I’ll skip it. After this, the whole thing ends in disaster and I retreat to my subterranean lair, close my milky white eyes, and hibernate for a thousand years.
However, this time I didn’t do anything. After she said the wallet thing, I just responded with a “Really? I’ve had this since I was 5!” (I’ll talk about how I give away too much personal information to strangers later) and a “See you later!” and left the bakery.
The above story was merely a set-up for the real subject at hand: crushes, and people reactions to them. People develop crushes all the time. I know a fellow who has a crush on Kristin Kreuk, who plays Lana Lang on Smallville. Crushes are harmless, and let us know the things that we like about people. They sometimes develop into something else, but most of the time they don’t.
A problem I, and probably many other people have, is that we develop crushes on everyone. I can go outside right now and walk down Elgin and find another girl to have a crush on. I have crushes on my male friends and my female friends, and on people’s mothers (and sometimes their fathers). This is obviously problematic, so I’ve stolen an idea I read on Dinosaur Comics a few months ago: friendship crushes.
The difference between a friendship crush and a crush on someone you could be interested in is a very subtle difference. In fact, the crushes are impossible to differentiate between unless you sit down and think about where they’re coming from. When you have a crush on someone you know, it usually just means that you want to spend more time with them, and get to know them. When it’s a crush on someone of the sex you are attracted to, then this can be misconstrued as wanting to have a relationship with said person. If you just want to hang out alot then you probably just have a friendship crush on an awesome person! If you want to have sweet makeouts and kisses or something, it is probably something else. If it’s a crush on someone’s parents, it just means that they’re sweet parents, my friends!
“But what about the crushes on random people, Nana?” you ask? Well I’m weird, and if you’re reading this you already know that. I’m sure bakery girl is nice, but I won’t be proposing any time soon, because she won’t say yes until I buy more pastries (that was a joke, I feel like I have to clarify that for some reason).
I just know that someone is going to come here and say that I’m just talking about liking someone’s character or something. Then they’ll say that friendship crushes don’t exist. But friendship crushes are different than that. Also, if you say that then you will cause my friendship crush to fade a bit, I think!
http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=710
