So I Have This Crush…

I remember having the biggest crush on a girl in one of my classes in 7th grade. Let me tell you, it was something else. We didn’t talk much, nor saw each other outside of school, and we definitely weren’t friends. So naturally it was pretty serious.

During lunch I would look for her across the cafeteria. In the hallways I would see her and wonder if she was thinking about me. On the bus rides home I would think about her. Needless to say, a lot of my energy and attention was spent towards this one girl who I barely even knew! For whatever reason, I just knew that one day I would certainly strike up a conversation with her, we’d fall in love, and that’d be all they wrote. Not only that, believe it or not, after a couple of weeks the feelings subsided and I found myself with a huge crush on a completely different girl!

As ridiculous as all this sounds, this is a phenomenon we’ve all experienced. Person A is going about their normal life. Person A meets Person B. Person A is immediately drawn to Person B. Person A is now hopelessly in love. Person A just knows Person B is the one for them. A couple of weeks go by and maybe Person B is out of the picture, but now Person A has strong feelings for Person C instead.

Why does this happen? Why do we find ourselves falling so fast for someone based off the briefest of encounters? Why do these feelings seem to flip on a dime and be so uncontrollable? What are we supposed to do with all this?

Attraction is a funny thing. It is something that every healthy, normally functioning human being experiences. Whether we’re 14 or 57, we’ve all had a crush – maybe many crushes – and it doesn’t seem to take much for them to develop. 

St. John Paul II was a master at understanding attraction. He even wrote an entire book about it called Love & Responsibility and he has some great insights for those of us who are struggling to make sense of the attractions we fall into everyday.

At the most basic level, St. John Paul II says, to be attracted to someone means to view that other person as a good. To attract someone, conversely, means to be seen by another person as good. That’s really what we’re dealing with when we’re talking about crushes. We see all the good qualities in another person and we are drawn to them. It’s easy to like that person, to develop strong feelings towards them, because we can easily see the good in them.

JPII breaks it down even more. He says that attractions to the opposite sex have two components – sensuality and sentimentality. Those are really just fancy words for physical attraction and emotional attraction. In sensuality, we are attracted to another person’s physical appearance. We maybe like their eyes, their hair, or their fashion. In sentimentality, we are attracted to the emotional aspects of that person. Maybe their warm personality, their sense of humor, or the closeness and ease of communication between you.

These aspects of attraction are good, but they are not love itself. They are instead, as JPII would say, the “raw materials” of love. These “raw materials” are eventually supposed to lead us to another person, who we get to know better and love. If we stop at just the physical and emotional qualities we like about that person and we base our entire relationship off of just those, then we are not actually loving that person – we’re using them for the pleasure those qualities give us.

So we see, our attractions, when ordered rightly, are good. They are meant to foster relationship and help build love. Your attractions are meant to lead you to another person so that you can get to know them better and foster a relationship of love.

So if you’re crushing right now – good! It means you are working just fine. But where do you go from here? Take these brief tips into account:

• Feelings are blind. They can’t know truth. Just because you have strong feelings towards someone doesn’t mean you are meant to be together forever. Know that attractions come and go all the time and they don’t always mean the endgame is dating.

• Stay rooted in reality. Don’t spend all your time and energy like 7th-grade me. If you’re spending an excessive amount of time imagining a relationship with this person that you’re not actually dating, then you’ll find yourself loving only a fantasy – not a person. Take an honest assessment about if being in a relationship with this person would actually be fruitful or if you’re really just in it for the feelings you get when you’re around them. 

• Shoot your shot. If you think that this really could be a good relationship, then take a chance and be bold! Ask them out! Pursue them! Our attractions are meant to lead us to another person, not keep us preoccupied in our minds. If this is someone you really want to get to know better, then the time has come to act. A simple coffee date is not a marriage proposal, get to know them better and start incorporating the whole person. 

Attractions are tricky. They can wringe the heart in a million different directions if left unchecked. By being aware of their intended purpose, we can truly begin to live out authentic relationships and maybe even more productive 7th grade careers.