Crushes are weird, especially when they make no sense. I would prefer if my feelings made sense, and if my spouse’s feelings made sense.
I was at our usual grocery store with my spouse, and we saw this guy who works there, who my spouse has mentioned before. He’s a tall, friendly, gorgeous Black man with long braids.
My spouse got a goofy look on his face, seeing this guy. A smile, but not his usual smile.
“Oh jeeze,” I thought.
I felt slightly jealous or maybe just annoyed that my spouse has a crush on this guy. The annoyance was immediate. I didn’t feel compersion–I didn’t feel joy or neutral observation.
annoyed-jealous
Wow, why was I annoyed-jealous? My spouse can like whoever he likes. In fact, it’s nice that he has feelings for other people, and I can know about it.
He does it safely. My spouse is the kind of person who’s not going to pursue something silly. He wants to be careful and not make our life harder with crushes. If something’s going to happen that’s sexual or romantic or even just intense, between him and another person, he needs to be sure I’m ok with it, and it seems like a good idea.
Of course, it can be hard to tell beforehand, how something will be.
question
“Do you have a crush on that guy at the grocery store?” I asked my spouse. We were lying in bed, after having sex.
“What?” he asked.
“That guy at the grocery store–do you have a crush on him?”
“No,” my spouse said.
“Hmm,” I said.
“I just like when he smiles at me,” my spouse said.
type of crushes
That made me wonder–what is a crush? Being extra happy when someone smiles at you might be a good way of explaining a crush! Or there are all different ways to crush on someone.
- super friendly
- very sexual
- beginning part of a friendship when you can’t tell how you feel about someone–a stage to pass through
- meaningful “holy crap” feeling that falling in love with a person is impending
- an extra sparkle to a friendship that doesn’t require action of any kind
- desperate obsession, where my well-being depends on that person’s behavior
- a feeling of interest and potential that can come and go
- strange chemistry that can’t be explained
- privately holding someone as special in a way that’s romantic
- childish attachment about how someone looks or seems, not actually knowing them
patterns
The first man I knew my spouse to crush on was a Black man also. Not sure if that’s a pattern or a coincidence. Then there was a thin intellectual white guy who we both had a crush on, the obnoxious porn star. Yuck! What a nasty player.
Then there’s a white guy who my spouse goes back 25 years with. I’ll never understand quite what they have. My spouse used to call this dude his “best friend.” Then they had a falling out… Not sure what’s real now.
But this “best friend” white guy is full of energy, movement, ideas, excitement. My spouse loves him in a way he’ll never love me.
cute
When I asked my spouse about the first Black man, my spouse said, “I just think he’s cute.”
I remember feeling curious and slightly threatened by the thin Black man who did Food Not Bombs in our previous city. Part of my fear was I didn’t (and don’t) know the history there.
Would my spouse fall in love with this guy and run away with him, leaving me in the dust? Was I a temporary plaything?
Ten years later, I feel safer with my spouse’s crushes and just in general. A decade is pretty solid. I’m more than a plaything, and my spouse doesn’t treat anyone that way. People can fake a lot, but after a while, trust makes sense.
