Alex Goes Off!

by Alexandra R. Yaremko

Crushes are a part of life. Why do they happen? We'll assume a biological component. How do they happen? Who knows. A crush by definition has to be on someone you don't know. If you know them you either like them or you don't. If you know them and like them, and also find yourself crushing on them, it may be more.

I once had a crush on a neighbor because he pulled his car into his parking space backward, played with his dog everyday, and I could smell the bleach through our common wall when he cleaned. I interpreted the way my neighbor parked his car as his being responsible and having foresight, taking his dog to the park everyday as indicative of personality traits (his not the dog's), and cleaning with bleach as, A) he cleaned and B) cute, the way guys think cleaning equals bleach. These things amounted to a nice, little, healthy crush, and didn't keep me from cleaning my closets. But as Bill, my friend Barb's husband, so logically pointed out at the time, "The guy from 'Silence of the Lambs' was nice to his dog too."

Not at all incidentally, Bill and Barb also met when they were neighbors in an apartment building. Unlike my neighbor guy and I, who never got past nice, polite banter in the hall, Bill and Barb have been married for a couple of years now. But Barb did something I never did. "I got home one day and Bill was sitting on his balcony. I went to my apartment, got the half a bag of trash I had and went to throw it out because I knew I'd have to walk by him again." So that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you handle a neighbor crush (the way Barb did, not the way I didn't). But what, if anything do you do, can you do, about the notoriously complicated work crush?

In general, females don't initially crush on males because of their looks (let alone their parts...). If anything, it's just the opposite. "He's pretty so I assumed he was stupid," says Kim about her crush JM, a co-worker. The hollow chocolate bunny syndrome. And she told him so. "The first time I met him I told him he must be an idiot." There are reasons crushes develop. The best I can pinpoint, it's the way the new crush does stuff. The new crush does stuff in a cute way (the only other more vague word in the English language being nice, whatever that means). The crush seems smart, funny, nice (again) and does this smart, funny, nice stuff in a cute way, which all adds up to being crushable.

Even if cute does not seem logical, after the initial does-stuff-in a-cute-way phase is when the real crushing begins. "So he's not stupid?" "No, he's smart, damn it. Did I tell you he has dimples?" says Kim. But maybe more to the point, "He doesn't cut me off when I talk," swoons Kim.

An advantage to a work crush is that you see your crush everyday. There is also business to conduct, which can lead to information for the crushing mind. "I got JM's stats today." To which you, the non-medical professional, ask cautiously, "What do you mean by stats and how did you get them?" Kim splains, "I had to do a blah-blah-blah test (officially sanctioned interpretation of a technical term) on him to show him how to do it. I got his height, weight, and resting heart rate." All of which were up to snuff and age appropriate and JM is in great health.

However, this conducting business stuff can also be a disadvantage. "Lately it just seems like I don't get as many voice mails from him and when I do, they're all business." The work crush dilemma: even with all of the flirting, what if they just want you for your brain. "I have porn hair and boobs, and I've been told I have nice lips, but what if he doesn't see that." Truth be told men, this is a no win situation. If JM wanted to talk to her for those reasons, there would be no conversation let alone a crush. "This is what I want to know about JM," says Kim. "When is it reaching and when is it a possibility?" And so does everyone crushing today. Maybe even JM. In the mean time, keep cleaning your closets as you run the stats.