Workplaces aside, sometimes you feel a bit of a something for someone and it's not the right call to make a move. If it's destroying you, you obviously have to get some space, but if not sometimes it just makes sense to ride it out. If you accept it, it can be kind of a sweet thing, and sometimes it can settle into a nice sort of platonic attraction.

[–] TraschcanOfIdeology@hexbear.net 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

To me, a crush requires a certain element of self-destruction that other kinds of attraction don't. A crush is also very selfish, it kind of objectifies the other person, and doesn't make them an active part of the relationship building process. I have friends to whom i'm attracted to/admire greatly, but at the same time wouldn't want to actually be in a relationship with, and I just try not to make my attraction everything about interacting with this person, there's the shaky ground imo. I've had some pretty bad crushes, and it ends up pretty badly for both of us, often with the relationship being poisoned by me allowing it to go unchecked.

Then, if you're using crush in a much more lighthearted way like some of my queer friends do, all power to you. Be histrionic and express your love/adoration as loud as you want and to the degree others consent to.

[–] Sol_Tradguy@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

the thing is i think for most people a crush just means they feel a romantic attraction to someone to varying degrees, most people do not think about the word that deeply or have such negative connotations to it. that's not to say it's wrong to have a different internal definition of a word but you are maybe universalizing something that the good majority of people conceptualize differently.

[–] TraschcanOfIdeology@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago

It might be something the people I grew up around did, and plus that I'm translating a very local word for crush with a whole set of connotations into English, which isn't my first language. You're right, thanks!

[–] CptKrkIsClmbngThMntn@hexbear.net 3 points 1 day ago

I'm probably more in that latter camp, despite a contentious relationship with my queer identity. "Crush" in my circles doesn't really have quite as much of a negative connotation but more of an innocent one. A crush is usually new because it's an unstable position to be in - you either make the move or have to move on eventually.

I'm poly and pretty sympathetic to relationship anarchy, and I find the straight, monogamous conceptions that dominate our culture very difficult to interface with. It took me a while to put my finger on the reasons that romance in media (films, books, especially songs) very, very rarely tugs on any of my heartstrings.

[–] ChestRockwell@hexbear.net 1 points 1 day ago

Thanks for articulating this. Yeah just thinking someone is attractive is not a crush.