Curiosity killed the Kit?

[kitanzi]

I was rereading through some old journal entries - I do that sometimes. Anyhow, I found the tempest in a teapot that the crush meme stirred up, and it made me curious.

If you have a crush on someone, do you tell them? Do you not? Do you tell mutual friends? Strangers who would have no idea who you're talking about? Does it make a difference if you think it's reciprocated? If so, how sure do you need to be? And if you think it isn't, do you nurture it, ignore it, or try to kill it off?

I'm curious, particularly because this meme included ex-crushes and I know a lot of people found that unknown people had ex-crushes. What does it take to turn a crush into an ex-crush? Apparent hopelessness, embarassment, disillusionment, nasty behavior from the crushee? (so to speak!)

I know I've historically been unlikely to tell anyone about a crush, but then historically I've had a fine habit of getting crushes almost exclusively on people bound to think I'm the wrong gender or the wrong kind of person, or else they're someone I should stay firmly at armslength from. Maybe for that reason I've had an awful lot of crushes just die a natural death after enough time, and a few I've firmly squelched for one reason or another. But what about the rest of you?

Comments

[catalana.livejournal.com]

*wryly* I've you've been following my journal, you know I tell my crushes at least sometimes...*laugh*

I actually rarely get to the stage of having a serious crush on someone, because I usually can kill it off before then. There are people who I know are simply out of bounds - people in monogamous relationships, people I know are totally uninterested - and I try not to think about them in a romantic context. Most other people I simply register an interest in, but I don't let it get as far as a crush unless I know there is interest.

Now, sometimes this backfires majorly. I have a friend who I have thought for years was absolutely gorgeous...and, I assumed, was straight. So I never said anything to her. And I find out later that, in fact, she had had a crush on me for the preceding three years but assumed I wouldn't be interested. *laugh* It was funny. Pretty frustrating too.

For me, things generally turn into an ex-crush when I give up for one reason or another. (Or decide that they're a possibility, but I'm not going to spend a lot of time/energy wondering if it'll happen.)

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

That sounds a little like me and ACat, who spent a solid year each assuming our crushes were thoroughly onesided and hopeless. *G*

So I take it the crush on that friend died on it's own before you ever found that out?