When Will The Gods Stop Smiting Me With Crushes?

God dang it, I’m so tired of crushing. It should be relegated to the teen years – not allowed to infect you past the age of twenty-five.

I don’t care how lovely it sounded when MJ sang it, I want the butterflies to get the heck out of my stomach and find someone else to sneak up on and give them the dry heave. Because that’s what it really is, we dress it up by saying ‘they gave me butterflies’ when what you really mean is ‘I saw them and suddenly needed to hurl’.

The intensity is too much, I don’t want it to keep making me obsess about what I look like before a date – heck I don’t even want it to make me agree to a date per say. It would be perfection if we were simply hanging out, having a beer, watching the game – no pressure, no assumptions. And then somewhere during a commercial break maybe we’d have a moment. Just a moment, I don’t need fireworks that soon in the game. I just want it to be relaxed instead of the typical ‘we’ve forced this’ situation that ultimately leads to agonizing silences and long awkward glances worthy of being a scene from Scanners. Because if this is us just hanging out I will finally be able to eat a full meal on this ‘date per say’.

Now don’t take that to mean I’m one of those women who doesn’t want a guy to know that I like food – it’s those afore mentioned crushing butterflies occupying the space in my stomach that’s allotted for the food. Now if I could have those few simple requests fulfilled and it’s getting more intense between us, that’s ok, because at least at this point I’ll have had the time to acclimate my crushing to a more sane level of maturity. I can miss you without wondering where you are every second of the day; I can smile at you when I see you instead of whipping out the Kool-Aid grin.

Yet I’m remiss to understand why Mother Nature insists on my needing the stomach bender to tell me he’s The One, or Mr. Right Now? I mean, if that’s supposed to be the barometer of meeting Mr. Right then mine is broke cause it dings off every time Mr. Cutie, Mr. Artistic, or Mr. Great Conversation happens by. That just shouldn't’t be. Not that I’m thinking that something is terribly off; just that the syndrome I believed to be mainly a problem of the male species is now my plight. I just love men; all sorts of men to be exact. I used to roll my eyes every time I’d hear some guy giving an interview and saying “I just love all women.” I’d be thinking, yeah that’s just your way of saying; “I just want to keep bonking chicks without ever committing to just one.” Now I’m begging my body to give me a break – “Body, I’ve been out of high school for a long time now – in case you haven’t noticed – I’m too old for this crap.”

What shall I chalk it up to?

Maybe it’s just my hormones making up for all the lost time. I virtually spent my high school and college years in the library reading about what happens when two people like one another instead of actually putting that knowledge to test. And now I’m paying for it – I now write books about complicated relationship situations, yet it’s quite clear that in real life I can’t excel in writing myself out of them.