Unrequited Crushes: How do you remember them?

Lacroix

This debate has been going on in my non-internet life lately and thought i'd bring it here. Alot of people I know really hate to think of this time in their lives, when they got googly over someone who really didn't give them the time of day. But to be honest, me and my Fiancee both remember these times fondly and as a factor in who we are as people now.

What do y'all think: Are unrequited crushes fond memories to you or not? And just how pathetic did you get in trying to win them over?

I had some pretty embarrassing attempts at trying to impress a girl. Lets call her Laura, because that was her name:

'composing/ad libbing) country songs and singing them (though thankfully never got around to singing it to her... just to myself on the way home from nights out with her and her friends)

Aquiring a love of Vin Diesel and the site handbag.com which she liked.

Talking about how hot George Clooney is.

Thats right, at 17 I thought that I could woo my crush by talking about how attractive george clooney was. I am not smart.

Yet, I still find these memories to be not something I regret, as they are part of my life and who I am. I really don't care that I wasnt important to her. She was important to me, and always will be just because whether she knew it or not she was a big part of my life.

Poor girl: Pretty much all the geeks fancied her and I really don't know why. She wasnt the most stereotypically pretty, nor was she into geeky stuff... but yeah: Like, all 5 of the guys who hung around in the computer room crushed on her.

I got told that 'I just don't see you that way' - fair enough. The Best part was that another geek sent her a valentines and she asked my help on rejecting him lightly. I offered 'I just dont see you that way'. Her reply: "thats a horrible thing to say to someone! Its just so blunt and cold!!' o_O:P


So, maybe its just because my one big crush that wasnt dr.fiancee was kind of tame that I have no regrets. Is it actually as uncommon as my friends have been making it sound to actually look back on unrequited crushdom fondly? If so why?

Speaker

W.H. Auden wrote:

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Bionic Monkey

I was a pretty shy kid, so I didn't do a whole lot in the way of "wooing" my crushes. They were pretty much "from afar" type affairs.

That said, only two really stick in my head. My first one, in fifth grade, whom my best friend actually ended up "dating" and a hot blonde Russian exchange student my freshman year in high school.

Nocren

so a few years back when I was stationed in Guam, I had a crush on this one girl.
I got nervous around her. It got so bad that I started getting the shakes around her. She worked in the ship's store as a clerk on occasion and I even got my buddies in on a plan to ask her out. See, the ship's store only allowed 5 people in at a time. If I started stuttering while trying to ask her out, one of the guys would chuck a can of tuna at my head. If I went into convulsions, they could carry me up to medical.
Plan was foolproof!

So eventually, she's away on leave and when she gets back there's a concert that's coming to Guam. I managed to score 2 tickets and I ran into as she was coming off of leave. I just mentally said "fuck it" and asked her out. So we went and we started hanging out. We go out a few times but I don't make any moves. I thought we were dating during this time. Later a friend of her's tells me that the girl thinks we're going to slow and we break up.

More recently she got stationed up here at MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) and so we started talking again and I introduced her to another friend. They started talking and I found out that she never even considered us as dating.

And we still talk nowadays.

Wow, that was long...

DasUberEdward

Whoops!

Kilroy

Great Big Sea wrote:

I drank 16 doubles for the price of one,
tryin' to find the courage to talk to the one.
I asked her for a dance, not a second glance.
My night had just begun.

Well I'd drink to the father or the holy ghost,
kneeling at the alter of my nightly post,
and I'll raise a glass, not the first or last.
Come join me in this toast!

Limp moose

to this day if a girl is going down on me and I can't get off I start thinking about an unrequited crush that gave me the best head of my life. It almost always works.

That is how I remember my unrequited crush.

Face down. On my dong.

Tarantio

There was this one girl in middle school I had a thing for. I had just moved to the school and new pretty much nobody, including her. But she was pretty, and had a nice singing voice, and people seemed to make fun of her, which I (ahem) identified with. And then she complimented me on a solo I had in choir, so I pretty much fell right there.

I was, of course, too shy to actually do anything about this, aside from letting her copy english homework when she asked. I think I gave up hope when I wrote a long entry in her 8th grade yearbook, and she wrote "HAGS!" in mine.

In hindsight? Well, it turned out that she was pretty emotionally unstable, and not especially smart. Junior year, she and my girlfriend ended up double cast in the same role in the musical, which resulted in horrible competition and emotional manipulation. At one point, she kinda charged at me to try to hug or kiss me or whatever, piss off my girlfriend a few feet away. On reflex, I interposed my foot between the two of us, so that she ran into it at about hip height.

It was probably a good thing that this particular crush was unrequited. The idea of the two of us being involved in any way at all is really too absurd for me to contemplate, now.

Casual Eddy

My unrequited crushes are bitter memories.

I had two in highschool. I was a closeted gaymo at the time, so I ended up crushing on some straight dudes that I knew. There were two main ones. The first one I wasn't that good friends with but we were acquintances as we were both in the jazz ensemble. He was the most beautiful person I knew. Gorgeous body (wrestler, he was built like the statue of david only more ripped), handsome, intelligent, and friendly. He was the kind of guy that if I revealed my crush he probably would have been awkward about it but not hostile. That made it even worse. I would watch his arms ripple as he played music and I basically shut down when talked directly to me. One time I saw him without his shirt on and I was literally speechless - which was awkward because he was talking to me at the time. I remember being around him being quite painful and enjoyable at the same time. I knew I could never have him - not like 'oh he/she's too good for me, or isn't single' I knew it could never ever happen. That made it so much worse.

Second one I was better friends with and we were involved in the same things, which was awful. He was quite handsome and same deal - it was sad and bitter to be around him, yet I craved his attention. He would often walk around shirtless which didn't help. Eventually I came out to him and my other friends and they were all fine with it.

I feel better about them now - I don't have feelings for either of them now. I don't crush on straighties really anymore, maybe because my boyfriend is fab. If either of them wanted to bone me I would totally go for it, but there's nothing left there. I guess it taught me the valuable lesson that pining after things I couldn't have would only make me miserable.

JebusUD

Limp moose wrote: »

to this day if a girl is going down on me and I can't get off I start thinking about an unrequited crush that gave me the best head of my life. It almost always works.

That is how I remember my unrequited crush.

Face down. On my dong.

If it was unrequited why is she sucking your johnson?

Limp moose

JebusUD wrote: »

Limp moose wrote: »

to this day if a girl is going down on me and I can't get off I start thinking about an unrequited crush that gave me the best head of my life. It almost always works.

That is how I remember my unrequited crush.

Face down. On my dong.

If it was unrequited why is she sucking your johnson?

I figured this would come up. There are many female relationships in my life where we had sex before we knew if we wanted any kind of relationship. In this case she came over to hang out one night we ended up having sex that night. We hung out some more I decided I really liked her. She decided she didn't like me. I pined after her for about a month and eventually gave up.

But I will have the image of her on my John Thomas for the rest of my life.

Let that be a lesson to you youngins. One night stands can lead to heart break. (and the clap)

Jurg

I remember my crushes fondly. Even though they tend to go pretty poorly, I can end up viewing them in a comedic way.

Plus, my attempts to woo women are some of the most significant factors in my development as a human being.

I got to where I am today by chasing skirts.

Element Brian

I took this girl I liked to an Avril Lavign/ Simple Plan Concert.
She started dating some other guy a few weeks later.

I regret this to this day, not that she dated someone else, but the concert.

Henroid

It's easy to remember mine because I'm still friends with all of them, whether it be distant or close. Spending time being mopey about a crush not wanting to get into your pants is pretty bad form. When I see people do that it tells me the valued the sexual side more than the actual person. So yeah, there's fond memories there and new ones still come about.

SteevL

A friend of mine I'd met about 14 years ago through a local BBS ended up being a huge crush for me. We were both very close, but I was usually too nervous to make any sort of move, and she was far more of a social person than I. Getting to know her better made me realize that logically there was no way we'd get along in a romantic relationship, but I couldn't shake her from my mind. Eventually I confessed to her that I had feelings for her, but I was basically rejected. At some point a while later I got what seemed to be a friends-with-benefits offer from her, but that never happened. I think it was all for the best.

She's been through a lot over the last few years, but we're still good friends. I don't see her more than twice a year, but I try to keep in touch. She's had her share of breakups and one nasty divorce, but I think she's definitely happy where she is now.

I also had a crush on a friend who I met via IRC. She lived in eastern Europe and we ended up sending each other lengthy emails to each other for a few months. The distance definitely helped prevent anything too serious from developing, but there was definitely some longing there. In the end, we were finally able to meet about 9 years ago when I went to Europe with my family. My brother and I met her and her boyfriend at a big music festival. We had a great time, but lost contact a few months later when she stopped coming into IRC.

I really am glad both of these crushes happened, though. It made me realize what I look for in a relationship. By the time I finally met the second girl, I had pretty much lost interest in her romantically (although she was quite cute!). I was already dealing with a new crush at that point, but that one ended up being my fiancee.

real_pochacco

I lost my virginity to what turned out to be an unrequited crush. She said I was too clingy.

Falx

What pisses me off about mine, is that with hindsight, all but one out of the four biggest ones I had, the girls obviously actually liked me as well.

I was just far too socially retarded to realize it.

Salvation122

Generally, they were wasted time.

There were other girls blatantly dropping hints that they'd like to go out but I was too gobsmacked by chicks who were (in retrospect) not all that hot and terribly fucked up emotionally to notice.

Mattie

Falx wrote: »

What pisses me off about mine, is that with hindsight, all but one out of the four biggest ones I had, the girls obviously actually liked me as well.

I was just far too socially retarded to realize it.

Tell me about it. I went through one of my high school yearbooks recently and reread a long note written by an old crush.

She signed the thing with a lipstick enhanced kiss. What the hell was wrong with 15 year-old me?

mcdermott

ITT we realize that 99% of teenagers are blind.

Gim

Generally a lot of wasted time and mental energy. It's not like I had anyone showing interest in me, so it was all I had. But they kept me in long ugly funks far too often, so I hate that they happened and I hate myself for creating hope where there was little to none.

MikeMan

i asked one of my hooge crushes out

it was over the phone after spending all day psyching myself up for it

she said she was busy, then i offered saturday instead of friday, and she said she was busy

then i said "okay, well... talk to you later" and then hung up

then i sat there shaking, so unbelievably embarrassed that i was physically freezing

edit: she then blocked me on aim for 3 months

Elki

MikeMan wrote: »

i asked one of my hooge crushes out

it was over the phone after spending all day psyching myself up for it

she said she was busy, then i offered saturday instead of friday, and she said she was busy

then i said "okay, well... talk to you later" and then hung up

then i sat there shaking, so unbelievably embarrassed that i was physically freezing

edit: she then blocked me on aim for 3 months

Awww

edit: Awww!

DasUberEdward

MikeMan wrote: »

i asked one of my hooge crushes out

it was over the phone after spending all day psyching myself up for it

she said she was busy, then i offered saturday instead of friday, and she said she was busy

then i said "okay, well... talk to you later" and then hung up

then i sat there shaking, so unbelievably embarrassed that i was physically freezing

edit: she then blocked me on aim for 3 months

You're actually one of the lucky ones. Some dudes waste a lot of time convincing themselves that one day a friend will like them as more than a friend. So yeah that's not so bad.

MrMister

Casual Eddy wrote: »

He was quite handsome and same deal - it was sad and bitter to be around him, yet I craved his attention.

This--over, and over, and over again.

GoodOmens

My major unrequeited crushes were in college. Two already had boyfriends, and I'll admit I was a bit of a dick trying to break them up. One, who I was absolutely over-the-moon for, actually kissed me on the last day of sophomore year, but it never went anywhere else. Another (third) girl...well, I actually was going to ask her out on the very day that I found out she had started going out with a friend of mine. So that didn't happen.

In high school, I actually ended up going out with one girl a few times, but it just never clicked. Later she came out of the closet to me, so that all made sense. We've since become very close friends, which is nice; we had shared some pretty deep stuff both before we started dating and since then, so it's nice to have that intimacy.

All things considered, it's best that I never got with the first girl. That relationship would have been a Titanic disaster; I knew it then but I swear she made me drunk, just being near her. My brain shut down. My friends kept telling me that I should let it go, that if she would cheat on her boyfriend with me she'd cheat on me, that she was much too flirty and flighty for me...but I couldn't listen. We later became friends, though I don't see her much, and the memories are painful but sweet. Especially that one kiss.

The Black Hunter

The bane of my life

Jacobkosh

The worst thing about these is that they're not necessarily confined to the teen years. In my case, I'd had a bit of success in high school, but college was basically one long dry spell - I commuted to school, and it was a city college, so there wasn't much of a scene to begin with and I couldn't be there for most of it anyway, and I had this extremely spotty part-time job that got me all of $75 a week, and I lived with my folks.

So it wasn't happening - or if it was, I wasn't confident enough about my situation that I felt comfortable pursuing anyone. This was all academic anyway since I had literally not met a single person I was interested in.

But ater a couple years I got this better job, and I moved out, and within I swear to god like three weeks I had met this girl on Friendster and we started hanging out constantly. And she was awesome: cute, smart as fuck, hip, an art critic for the local paper - I was smitten. But I was completely out of it and didn't know what I was doing and she started seeing this guy and blah blah blah drama. It was like the worst bits of high school, replayed in slo-mo and magnified a thousand times; I had no idea I was still capable of feeling that horrible, that barren and bereft and emo.

It took me two (2) normal relationships to really and truly get over it. It taught me a certain amount of humility about assuming that being grown-up meant that I had all the answers. And I suppose I should be grateful that I can still feel things to that extent, but blargh. Never again.

DasUberEdward

After spending more time than i'm willing to admit doing the unrequited thing in high school I'm absolutely certain i'll never allow it to happen again.

Good learning experience. I guess.

Suicide Slyde

GoodOmens wrote: »

My major unrequeited crushes were in college. Two already had boyfriends, and I'll admit I was a bit of a dick trying to break them up. One, who I was absolutely over-the-moon for, actually kissed me on the last day of sophomore year, but it never went anywhere else.

All things considered, it's best that I never got with the first girl. That relationship would have been a Titanic disaster; I knew it then but I swear she made me drunk, just being near her. My brain shut down. My friends kept telling me that I should let it go, that if she would cheat on her boyfriend with me she'd cheat on me, that she was much too flirty and flighty for me...but I couldn't listen. We later became friends, though I don't see her much, and the memories are painful but sweet. Especially that one kiss.

Hello me... reminds of a crush that I had. The difference is that her boyfriend wasn't good for her, and her friends, including her sister, kept telling me to just go for it but I had too much respect for the concept of involved relationships. The amount of flirt that went back and forth was reaching near epic levels and I really couldn't take it anymore. I told her that she either needed to break it off with him or we should just stop, that's when she told me she was pregnant. I really didn't know what to do, and just sort of slipped away.

Speaker

Salvation122 wrote: »

Generally, they were wasted time.

There were other girls blatantly dropping hints that they'd like to go out but I was too gobsmacked by chicks who were (in retrospect) not all that hot and terribly fucked up emotionally to notice.

My wife and I went to high school together, but we didn't start going out until a year after we graduated.

Turned out she had had a crush on me for years and I hadn't noticed.

Teenagers are indeed idiots.

RocketSauce

I've been on both sides, and they are not fond memories.

KalTorak

I remember my unrequited crush sparingly and by repeatedly kicking myself, because i had had this crush for so long and it had gone unrequited for so long that I was resigned to that being the case for ever, and then when after years it turned out that she had a quiet crush on me and actually made moves and did something about it, my idiot brain assumed that I was misinterpreting things and wasted at least 6 opportunities for spontaneous makeouts. It was like an incredibly lame Greek tragedy.

Dixon

unrequited love is terrible

Grade 8, instantly fell in love with this girl. Pretty much was in love with her until grade 10 but never had the balls to come out and tell her. I dated other people during the time but nothing else ever clicked. She then started dating my best friend who also didn't know I was head over heels for her. The worst part is talking to her all these years later I found out she had a huge crush on me...argh...I should of known after we went to prom in grade 8 together :P

It's all good though, you learn from it and now I'm with someone who makes me happy

Loren Michael

Limp moose wrote: »

Let that be a lesson to you youngins. One night stands can lead to heart break.

Man, yeah. I got drunk on New Year's with my friend-who-was-a-crush and she started kissing me and one thing led to another and it was great but unbelievably awkward for a month and the friendship regressed to an unsatisfactory point and never recovered.

sigh

Gonmun

Back in grade 8 I had a huge crush on a girl in grade 10. We'd both flirt and stuff and I even "went out" with her younger sister at one point over the course of the school year. You know, that whole hold hands thing where you say you're boyfriend and girlfriend but aside from seeing each other at school there wasn't much contact unless I went to see her at her house or what not. Didn't last long.

So over the summer, my sister wanted to go play some volleyball at the local high school that had some beach volleyball courts. I went with her for the hell of it and 'lo and behold my sister invited my crush because they were both into volleyball in school. We go out, have a fun time and at one point I'm laying in the sand and she comes over and sits on my stomach and does a little eyebrow wiggle. Rest of the time she flirts and I flirt back. We all go back to my house at the end of it and I go into my room and lay down on my waterbed to start playing some N64. Girl comes upstairs while my sister goes to the kitchen and comes into my room and flirts a bit more. One thing leads to another and she kisses me. So over the course of the summer she comes over a lot and we go from kissing to making out. But as it turns out and I didn't find this out until like a week later, she had a boyfriend in the next town over. But she still wanted her fun with me. Was kind of heartbreaking for me then as I really liked her but didn't like being used.

Funny thing is, a few years later I come back from college and start working at the local amusement park and she happens to be there as well. I wind up car pooling a bunch of people from my town and she's one of them and one night after work as she was normally the last drop off before I went home she invited me upstairs. Made out for a little bit and probably would have been more if it weren't for that wonderful time of the month. But then she cooled things off as it was close to the end of the summer.

Ahh summer flings and crushes

Jurg

Also, the associated attitudes of crushes offer diametrically opposed views of things, which is awesome.

On the way up, it's easy for one encounter with your crush to lead to days of a residual good mood.

Once you've hit rock bottom, some things make sense in a way they never would if you were in a good mood.

For example, I first heard "Where is My Mind?" by The Pixies when I was in that second state. That song hit at exactly the right time in my life, and The Pixies have since become my favorite band.

Never would have happened if I hadn't been crushed.

Richard_Dastardly

In seventh grade I had a monumental crush on my neighbor. We were in the same class, and my basic strategy to woo her involved little more than giving her all my lunch money every single schoolday.

This was all leading up to my big move when I was gonna win Boyz II Men tickets off the radio and ask her to go with me. Stupid radio. I never won.

3lwap0

This is a total geeky one, but true.

Back in the day, when I was 18, I used to do a lot of MUDS/Mushes. I was on this WoD one, and struck up a conversation with someone who lived in a town not far from me.

So one day we decide meet up, and have a pretty good time hanging out. And while I didn't find her attractive at first, for whatever reason, she grew on me fast, and before you knew it, I was head over heels for her. A part of me knew though, it would never work out. She was 23, I was 18, and she preferred a different scene from mine, not to mention the distance between the towns. I knew I wanted her more than anything, but I knew of my heart of hearts it would never work out.

One day I broke it to her how I felt, in an e-mail of all things. I just laid everything on the line in that e-mail, and sent it, knowing full goddamn well it was a bad idea. She was surprised how I felt, and of course, didn't feel for me like I did her. We didn't talk again until several years later, after she'd married a guy and had a kid. I still look back at that ordeal and sigh. It was my first real heartbreak.

Jurg wrote: »

For example, I first heard "Where is My Mind?" by The Pixies when I was in that second state. That song hit at exactly the right time in my life, and The Pixies have since become my favorite band.

Never would have happened if I hadn't been crushed.

Man, me too. In my case it was Weezer's blue album.

I think Chris Rock said it best. "Whatever music you were listening too when you started getting laid - that will be your favorite music for the rest of your life."

Dman

If you have a crush on someone, ask them on a date, if she says no or things just don't work out, move on.

Anything else is just torture. That is how I remember it. You'd be better off getting up every morning and giving yourself a paper-cut.

SithDrummer

Salvation122 wrote: »

Generally, they were wasted time.

There were other girls blatantly dropping hints that they'd like to go out but I was too gobsmacked by chicks who were (in retrospect) not all that hot and terribly fucked up emotionally to notice.

Gonna go ahead and 2nd this