I Have a Crush.

At 5:00 the sun had already set and I wandered around the East Village with a new friend, both of us cold and hungry, before finding shelter in one of the many hipster pizzerias. As we settled past pleasantries, we sunk into our chairs and shared a pie and our most important opinions. During our conversation about past relationships and most regrettable mistakes, he looked up at me while blowing on his pizza and said, “I think you’re less of a player than you let on.” A player? When had I given him that impression? In the silence that followed while eating the sizzling slices, I thought about his comment that I took more as an insult. 

I never thought of myself as a player; in fact, I never thought of myself as even capable of casual hookups. My sensitivity and surplus of empathy I  owed to my astrological sign or my grandmother who seemed to cry even more often than I did. As much as I wanted to convince myself I could be that laid back,‘chill enough to have something casual’ girl, I felt I either developed some feelings or got a serious case of the ick. But as I sat across from my new friend, I thought about the male endeavors of the past year: how few there were and the lack of emotion I felt. 

For many months I seriously worried if I would ever have a crush again, re-watching Call Me By Your Name just to prove to myself I was still capable of being attracted to something. I found I was of course still attracted to Eliot Perlman. There wasn’t some switch that had been flipped.Yet, I found myself going on almost a year without a single real crush. I wondered if I had raised my standards too high or had started to value my own presence more than most men I found around me. While both of those were true, my self-love still didn’t serve as a valid enough explanation for my lack of emotion. 

Nearly a  month later, I began to overthink my texts and grow nauseous with excited nervousness apon thinking about this guy; for the first time in nearly a year I had developed feelings for someone other than a fictional character… I had a crush. Maybe I needed time, maybe I hadn’t met someone deserving of my attention since my breakup more than a year ago, or maybe I had just needed to finally gain closure on that relationship after holding onto the prospect of us getting back together after graduation. As hard as it was to hear my ex say we would not get back together, I felt a complete release of nervousness from playing my cards right or waiting for him. Even though this felt like another wave in a wave train following the breakup tsunami, it was the final wave. The destruction was finally over, there was no more waiting, and intentionally or not, I started to rebuild. 

This crush, the first one in a long time, not only seemed to be a signal that I finally felt like I could be emotionally vulnerable again, but that I had restored my sensitivity. Not my sensitivity as it once was, but a variation having learned the pain of a true heartbreak. A sensitivity detached from naivety with a newfound value for my vulnerability- it wasn’t cheap. Instead of indulging in daydreams of crushes surrounding any guy that showed interest, I had grown selective, evaluating my crushdom recipient before granting them my feelings. I hadn’t lost my delicacy, I had just grown more protective of it, and in doing so, more protective of myself. How lucky are those to be crushed on by me.

By Devin Yadav

Call Me By Your Name obsessed, wannabe Bowie groupie, and off-brand irl Moana