Friendship vs crush

What is the difference between romantic friendship and a crush? Not a heart-rending teenage pining crush. But still a crush.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m pretty miscalibrated about a lot of stuff, and I’m not very good at making friends (and most of my oldest friends are people I slept with or got high with back in the day).  But I think that if I’m drawn to someone it’s always at least a little bit sexual (even if, at this point in my life, I wouldn’t act on it).

But I continue to be baffled by romantic friendship.  Maybe because I really don’t understand the rules of heterosexuality.  It seems to involve a lot more flirting and hearteyes and frank admiration than I would expect.

(no subject)

"People who believe they’ll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, learn it doesn’t work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you."

—Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Wherever you go, you take yourself with you,” is a 12-step aphorism (related term: “geographical cure”).  And I guess it’s got a grain of truth in it.

But sometimes you really are in a super crappy situation.  And getting out of it really will help.