Falling Into Like

Do you know what I haven’t had in a long time? No, not a mimosa, though that’s certainly true and a tragedy. No, not sex, I did the horizontal tango last weekend. And no, certainly not sleep, since I prioritize that over even blogging. What I’m missing is far more fanciful and much rarer than any of the above: it’s a crush.

I haven’t had one in over a year and a half. That isn’t to say I haven’t been interested in people, but I think a crush, in the true sense, is different from your typical infatuation. Unlike most of my romantic fixations which are largely bred by indiscriminate, booze-assisted sexual encounters a la typical college movie, a crush is characterized by a kind of unrequited longing. It has a touch of innocence, a pinch of uncertainty, and it creates an unresolved tension absent in relationships consummated by a date or hookup. You don’t know where things are going and you don’t know what exactly is there, but something most definitely is there. You can’t tell if the other person feels what you do or if anyone’s going to point anything out or whether you even really want this strange tango vocalized and acknowledged, because then you’d have to face it — whatever “it” is — and that would mean the internal speculation would cease. You don’t even know how you feel about that, about losing the running dialogue you have going with yourself. That uncertainty is at once frustrating for its lack of clarity and liberating for its endless possibilities. And you think, you’re pretty sure at least, that you have an inkling of what you’re getting into, but really you can’t be sure until you’re already immersed with the water high above your head, and it’s way too late to break surface for air.

That, to me, is what having a crush is like, and is it any wonder that it comes so rarely, especially here? At Harvard, you’d be hard-pressed to find legitimate crushes, to find anyone willing to cede control, willing to toss the key to their heart over to some relative stranger for a thrill ride that they are passenger to. Here life is defined by order and schedules and rules and things that emotions do not abide by. There’s a reason for that. If we allowed ourselves the luxury of taking chances and fixating on people for no reason other than that they are interesting, then we’d risk the foolish act of leaving our fate up to someone’s whims and getting into a situation where no amount of studying or persuading or networking could guarantee our desired outcome. And that is frightening for people so used to knowing where they’re going, what the best routes are, and when they expect to get there.

I don’t sympathize with my classmates. I empathize. I am no less “Harvard” than anyone else here, though I purport to be fabulously unconventional. Part of attraction is not knowing what you’re in for, but I’ve never been the type of person who becomes interested simply because there’s someone I can’t obtain. Like my peers, hard to get isn’t a game I like to play, unless I’m the referee. So when it comes to crushes, I enjoy the butterflies and speculation, but I could do without its share of wrenching doubt and torturous self-questioning. If there’s anything I can’t put up with, it’s not knowing where someone stands. That’s why when I have a crush, it doesn’t last long. I push for a satisfactory result, sometimes come up empty-handed, but either way, have some sort of conclusion, a peace.

There’s someone I think I could fall in like with, which is partially why I’m writing this entry. He hasn’t yet summoned up butterflies in my stomach, but I have a hunch that it’s only because current circumstances don’t allow for the possibility of us. It’s complicated, inconvenient, laced with the sort of obstacles that tempt me to give up and just choose someone a little easier instead. But I don’t want to give up before we’ve even really gotten started. This guy, he’s different, though Kennedy, my best girl at Harvard, argues that I think all the guys I’m into are “different” from our loafer-clad peers. So fine, he’s far from being a real rebel, but he looks at me and well, it’s not the way most guys look at me. When he talks to me, he gets it, he gets everything: where I’m coming from, how little I want to sign up for an ivy-charmed life, my self-consciousness despite the flamboyancy. And in that sense, he sees me pretty clearly, as much as someone can without having lived with me or seen firsthand what goes on behind my bedroom door. So though we may be completely unalike, there exists between us a rare sort of understanding that people don’t just stumble upon everyday.

And when I finish my papers and exams and when all of this stuff in between and in the way is finally over, when I am a bit more sure and I see him a bit more clearly, I think that I could try. I think that maybe I could forget about the map and the directions and the destination in mind and just hand over my keys and let him drive away with my heart and affections wherever he wants as fast as he wants. It’s been a long time since love, even a longer time since like, and I am finally beginning to fall in the latter. I can’t wait to see where he takes me.