In honor of the Hallmark holiday that we celebrate on the 14th day of a 28-day month (which, incidentally, makes it the "Hump Day" of February, as a friend of mine pointed out), this post studies the most absurd function of the human brain. Which is crushes.
Scenario: You are a super cute girl. One day, you meet a super cute dude and he does some super cute thing, or he just smiles, and your little heart melts and BOOM goes the dynamite. You have a rose-colored, instantaneous, quickened-heartbeat, stupid crush that came out of literally no where. Like a sniper. A crush sniper.
Freeze. This situation is ridiculous. Like, middle school girl ridiculous. And we've all been there. The inevitability of crushes is the reason Taylor Swift is a millionaire.
A full-fledged, legitimate crush is based in a total fantasy world. What do you know about that sexy dreamboat of a person, besides the fact that they are a sexy dreamboat? Do they have a significant other? Are they financially stable? Do they share your interests? Do they operate a drive-by underground drug business out of their kitchen window? Who cares? Not you. Admit it: you are totally comfortable living in ignorance. It's more fun that way. If you don't know anything, you can pretend that the sassy comment he made about your embarrassing tendency to blush bright pink was actually a confession of his deep, undying affection. Because that's super plausible.
On the completely opposite side of the spectrum, crushes can sometimes cause extreme and totally baseless fits of jealousy, causing pains in your general stomach/heart area and a Marian Dashwood-esque pity party about the unfairness of the world in general. Listen, honey, just because a guy exchanges clever text messages with your quick-witted co-worker does NOT mean he wants a piece of that. Nor does he want any piece of you, so calm your storm.
Crushes also render you totally incapable of normal human behavior. Like speaking lucidly. You know, how you are capable of being incredibly cute and clever in a group of people (even, on occasion, witty) but somehow coherent speech proves completely elusive when you are talking to a person you have every desire to impress? It is the actual worst. How are all your baseless fantasies going to come true if you can't say "I'm fine, Brad, how are you?" If the situation is really dire, things like (but not limited to) walking, maintaining your grip (on objects and also on reality), and not giggling are also incredibly difficult.
Then (and this is by far the most annoying), there is the fact that no matter what your crush does, literally WHATEVER THEY DO, you find it completely adorable. Which is 100% bothersome, because then all you want to do is tell someone about it, and the last thing your friends want to hear is that Mark From Biology Class smiled at you when he walked by. Because in their world (which is, in fact, the real world) Mark was probably not peering into your soul when he flashed his devilish grin. He was probably just being nice. So you end up becoming THAT girl, the one who can't keep her trap shut about the guy that probably barely knows she exists.
So there it is. The unavoidable crush that is simultaneously hilarious, tragic, fun and idiotic. The only solution I can think of is to let it happen. Ride the wave, so to speak. And try to maintain a standard of dignity and class befitting your status as a bad-ass rockstar of a human being. If you have to drive 75 mph down the highway and sing a Taylor Swift song, that's probably okay too.
