Crush... more than just a great Dave Matthews song

In an edition of Storytellers, Dave Matthews introduces his song Crush by saying "it's about the fun part of love". I'm not sure if I would totally agree with that given that the "fun" is usually accompanied by fear, anxiety, and impatience and about a thousand other juvenile emotions that we clearly are not able to grow out of.

I have seen that people go about "crushing" in various ways. I can only really offer the woman's perspective of this but I imagine behaviors are not all that different in the genders. I remember a commercial once where a woman is eating her yogurt at the office (its a commercial about yogurt). She sees a new guy in the office and it plays out her thoughts as she sees this new guy. It went something like... "Oh. New guy. He's cute. Maybe we'll go to lunch. And I can help him on the new training. Then we'll have a spring wedding." This is funny because it's not that far off base.

The crush is much more toxic than a mere interest, more than finding someone funny, cute, flirty. The crush forces an unnatural cell phonic attachment, our laugh somehow increases by about 100 decibels, and our wardrobe plans suddenly have to account for super-cute-day every day of the week. The power of the crush can make us do things we'd otherwise not do. Example. I have a friend who is a now a Led Zeppelin fan because a boy she liked in high school liked Zeppelin. She adopted a common interest for the sake of the boy. This is not a strange practice. I bet some of you right now are thinking of some crazy changes you have made (or in some cases, made up lies) merely for a boy or girl... probably some that have gone terribly wrong... "No way! I love tennis too!"

There was a boy in college. He will remain nameless. But for some reason, when in his presence, I could not for the life of me put together two sentences that made me seem remotely intelligent. You know the part in While You Were Sleeping when Peter tells Lucy "Merry Christmas" at the ticket booth and all she can come up with in response is a string of sounds and no actual words? Sooo totally my life. To quote a dear friend of mine, "I'm afraid that once your heart is involved, it all comes out in moron."

I'd like to think that the majority of us (me included) take on the dating scene with confidence and determination and the who cares! attitude. I think you're neat. But I am the way that I am so take it or leave it. Although, if and when the respective crush takes the "leave it" option, we somehow wish we could take back our ultimatum. We find ourselves, as much as we hate to admit, actually caring. Pride has little room in the pursuit of crushes.

Those are just a few of my ramblings on love in the life of the singles. I have noticed over the years that no matter what stage of singledom we may be in, the game is roughly the same. Maturity and life experience can only affect it so much. We are never immune from our inherent moronic tendencies. But, let's be honest, playing the moron can be quite fun. So yes, Dave, you are correct.