A short list of people I’ve had a crush on since starting this column: the bagger at Whole Foods with the body of a lumberjack, dark reddish hair pulled back into a slight ponytail, one strand fallen loose and tucked behind his ear. A scruffy musician I used to
I did not know the woman in question, though her face was plastered all around New York at the time, and my friend certainly wasn’t the only one noticing. “Who is that girl in the T-Mobile ad” turns up 199 million Google results. That was his first thought upon
Not surprisingly, the crush Wikipedia page is quite robust. There is the movie with Alicia Silverstone. There is a Dave Matthews song (of course). There is a Mates of State album. Tragically, there is something called a crush film, in which live animals are stepped on. This is the opposite
That is well and good, but my own suggestion is that you never get a crush on a married person. It’s trouble. Leave it alone. My married crush began in an email exchange, with a man I only kind of knew. These details sound mundane, but they're
And yet, I sat in the dark theater and felt a planetary pull toward him. I went all hot and melty during a scene in which he did little but stare at his love interest, a mysterious smile flickering on his lips. The movie was hypnotic, strange, but I noticed
“Get the nerve,” she wrote back. Actually she wrote: “GET THE NERVE.” It was typical that I couldn’t just join a dating site—I had to manufacture a scenario in which the story depended on it. Why was I like this? I schemed my way through flaming hoops when
I IMed Thomas. “I have seen so much today that I can’t unsee.” “This might be good fodder for your crush column,” he said. “Crush?” I said. “I want to cry a little bit. This is the opposite of the crush feeling, which is light and happy and safe.
I knew Thomas would have a plan. Thomas is a man of action, not a woman of romance and longing like me. I get a crush, and that is the end of the story. Thomas gets a crush, and he has a date on Friday night. It’s not that
I had decided to go to South America in part because I didn't have a boyfriend. That sounds so lame, particularly in the face of the cooing admiration I received for my derring-do—A woman! Alone!—but it was precisely my status as a woman, alone, that inspired
The cute guy had come to my previous class, and placed his mat directly across from mine. He had hooded lids, a football team captain’s smile and a strong athletic build. Not my type, but still. He looked so familiar, actually, that I accidentally made meaningful eye contact while
“Tell us a little about yourself.” Gulp. I stared at the blinking cursor, writing phrases only to erase them. I could not shake the thought that my answers were meant to lure potential dating partners, that this was a marketing document of sorts. Pick ME! Love ME! I answered all
Except I usually don’t do any of that. I just feel the flutter in my heart, and wonder why this person, of all people, made it happen. Brown-Eyed Charmer of Indiscriminate Ethnicity I dated this guy in college who was half-Mexican, half-German. I was nuts about him, and he
He was a small, skinny guy—dark hair, nice smile, wore those black jeans and mock turtlenecks we all put our faith in during the mid-’90s. I’m not even sure what drew me to him in the first place, except his interviews with celebrities were disarming and hilariously
“Congratulations!” he writes back. “No, it’s the worst,” I respond. “I can’t concentrate. I’m being weird. It’s awful.” I sighed when people said his name. I had taken to needlessly applying lip gloss before I got my morning coffee and again when I stopped by for
