Crush By Holly Searle

Have you ever had a crush?

If you have, believe me when I say I feel your pain.

Having a crush is a bit like having an elephant with you in every room that you enter where the object of your affection may also be. Its presence is so awkward (not that I mind elephants of course) that it becomes quite wearing, and reduces you to a jibbering fool, jester hat and all.

And not only does it always find you, regardless of your attempts to shake it off or however much you try to lose it by distracting it with buns or whatever else elephants are distracted by. At the most inappropriate moment, it will start waving its trunk about so rapidly, that you start to worry about all of the damage its wild and untamed nature may cause.

Of course crushes can be really quite lovely. Those little unexpected moments when the object of your affection appears quite suddenly, that cause your stomach to flip over and set your heart pumping. These are magical. And if nothing else these primitive responses remind you that you still have the capacity to feel and experience desire for another human being.

That is the positive.

The negative however, is that everything that you say in these alone with your crush moments of possible opportunity, when you try to say something of worth to your crush, just appear to be the disengaged mutterings of an idiot. Whilst your stomach and heart are doing their thing, your brain suddenly deactivates and every word that decides to leave your mouth, that is desperately trying to formulate an impressive and unforgettable sentence, just sounds like you are an arsehole.

You know this of course, because the elephant taps you on the shoulder with its trunk and whispers it in your ear.

That was a classic fail it says in a low Hannibal Lecter voice.

You verbally blush, and think you must after all be the biggest idiot to have walked the Earth, and leave under a cloud of shame filled impeding rain.

And for some stupid reason, probably due to all the extra blood flow that your heart is pumping around your body, you flee the scene of the verbally exchanged crime as quickly as you possibly can, elephant laughing in tow.

When you have a crush, there appears to be no clear plan of action. How can there be? It is after all just a crush. It can only become something else once you have managed to ascertain if your crush likes you as well.

Everyone else you encounter is easy to talk to. You can be yourself, the one that is likeable, reasonable and normal. You can exchanged interesting dialogue and ideas while the elephant is busy texting all of the other crush elephants and telling them all about your latest stumble.

LOL It types. This is the BEST fun I have had in years. Hope this one lasts a bit longer, LOL

Then there are you physical actions. These all seemed to became illuminated by the proximity of your crush. You lose all the control that you once had in a nano second, and turn into Leonardo DiCaprio in that post drug taking scene in The Wolf of Wall Street,

At that point even the elephant looks up from its mobile, stops texting, and is embarrassed.

You try and give yourself a good talking too. Some days you ignore it and get one with your day, and resume the role of a well functioning human being. You wash your mind of it all. But of course this doesn't last long as your crush will insist upon doing something to open up the whole can of worms once again.

At that point, you decide that you are just going to say something, as this cannot continue. Hello You would like to say. I need to tell you that I like you quite a lot. I have no idea what that may or may not mean, but I cannot feed this elephant and its perverse ridicule of me any longer.

This Walter Mitty fancy plays over and over again in your mind, until you surmise that your crush will in all probability either say What took you so long? Or, more likely run for the hills screaming.

But wouldn't it be nice if your crush was thinking exactly the same as you, and also had an elephant following them from room to room, whenever you were near, that they were also trying to lose.

And wouldn't it be even nicer if both of those elephants packed their trunks and said goodbye to the circus and left, leaving you and your crush alone at last.