When a friend has a crush, I love to debrief over a drink. Is this a fling? Are they soul mates? Maybe it’s nothing at all? It’s especially exciting if the person hasn’t felt this way in a while or if they’re entering into the most volatile of crushes: post-breakup infatuation with someone new. But even for me, an eager conspirator as to whether a hot co-worker meant something more when they Slacked “thanks” with a smiley face, there’s a fine line between fun conversations to bond over and never-ending, circular monologues that become alienating. It’s the difference between a friend with a new-crush glow and the bloodshot eyes of Charlie Day pointing at his string wall.
Most of us have been, at one time or another, Charlie Day levels of “down bad” for a person who might not know we exist. I, too, have pestered my friends with exhausting theories about why someone hasn’t texted me back. So I know: The only thing worse than being left on read by someone you’re interested in is being left on read by your friends because you can’t stop talking about it. You send a mountain of text messages, detailing your crush’s every gesture the previous night, and your group chat replies, Yeah, that’s wild. Or, worse, with a hasty “!!” reaction with no further commentary — universal code for touch grass. We know better than to act like this. So why do crushes still make even the most sensible among us so completely annoying, to the level that we push our friends away with our obsession?
