friend crush
In the notes people have written to me (here and in email) there are two constants: (1) the object of the crush seems unapproachable in some way; (2) the crush is not sexual in nature.
Friendship dynamics get very complicated when you bring in the opposite sex or sexual attraction of any kind. I'm thinking of that famous line from When Harry Met Sally, Harry's claim that men and women can never be friends, because sex always gets in the way. The plot of that movie bears out his theory, of course. Harry's right; Sally's wrong. So is there such a thing, really, as a true friend crush? Is this something women are capable of (a strong, non-sexual friendship with a particular male) but men are not (friendship with a female that never skates into the realm of the sexual)? Do men have friend-crushes on women?
When a woman has a friend-crush on a man, my guess is that 95% of the time it goes unarticulated. A woman's first worry is going to be that her interest will be misunderstood as a sexual advance, no matter how clearly she states the opposite. I certainly have been in this situation, not pursuing a possible discussion or friendship with a male because I fear that he will think I'm making an advance, or worse, that I'm too crazy to admit I'm making an advance. He'll think I'm a needy, bunny-boiling Glenn Close type looking for any excuse to pour acid into his car's engine, and he'll run in the opposite direction with me shouting 'but I just wanted to talk to you about the plot dynamics in the Sopranos! and you don't even have a bunny!' To avoid this possibility, I don't say anything at all unless there is absolutely no chance of being misinterpreted. Which means mentioning the guy's significant other prominently, and repeatedly, and mentioning my own significant other in the same way.
So what's the deal with girl crushes, then? Is there a similar fear, that the interest will be interpreted as sexual? Or is it just fear of plain old, garden variety, non-sexual rejection? My guess is, the second one. Whether females are fourteen or forty-five, the highschool lunch room dynamics are at work, and rejection is one of the most powerful weapons women wield in their interactions with each other.
I suppose you could say this is one of the good things about writing fiction; it makes you think really hard about the way people interact with each other. But it's also pretty exhausting, and so I'm done, for today. Yell if you've got something to add.