I have found the cure to my boredom in this anti-cupid world—crushing hard on cute, uncaring Hinge boys. I am a fan turning them into a poetic fiction in my head. If he has the height, the hair, and an aesthetically pleasing Instagram grid, he will do. It works like magic if he is unattainable.
A crush—commonly defined as lack of information—isn’t soul-crushing like unrequited love, and that’s why it’s mad fun. It’s a daze where you act all kinds of silly and go to bed with a goofy grin on your face. I don’t want to dilute the sob-fest that is Karan Johar’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (2016), but let me just tweak Shah Rukh Khan’s dialogue a little bit. “Ek tarfa crush ki taqat kuch aur hoti hai…sirf mera haq hai ispe…sirf mera (The power of a one-sided crush is something else… it’s mine alone… only mine).”
Most of our crushes don’t even know our name or that we exist. We are pining, but low-key.
Once upon a time in the hallways of Lucknow’s most infamous goon-churning factory—my school—a boy couldn’t stop looking at me. I don’t know if it was the glow of my pimples or my overconfidence from peaking in high school, but he seemed smitten by it. One afternoon, when I fixed his tie with a shoddy knot, he changed his WhatsApp status to “My tie is blessed”. I totally deserved the ego boost (my crushes didn’t) so I couldn’t even be caught liking their pictures.
A subtle crush? So last decade
These days, the biggest tell that someone has a crush is when they start spamming on social media. Niche memes, too many selfies, and tweets like, “Having a crush has cured my depression! Now it’s anxiety’s time to shine”. Jay Gatsby hosted lavish parties for one person’s attention, and we revamp our whole internet presence for it. We declare our infatuation by liking our crush’s siblings’ posts and then blame it on the algorithm. Subtlety is so last decade anyway. Each like is one step closer to a DM. The easiest, and slightly spooky, way to attract a crush has proven to be manifestation. Just repeat three times in the shower: “He is obsessed with me.” And he might actually be someday.
I have even gone to the lengths of catfishing my crush to get his attention. For six months, he chatted with me (a fake account with Selena Gomez’s pictures) every day on Facebook and fed my fantasy. We talked about his gym sessions, his undying love for WWE and his hatred of egg curry. When I was bored and fully cured of the feverish trance, I confessed—I love egg curry and I don’t even like you.
Also read: Modern dating is an emotional kabaddi – swipe, disappear, meditate, detach, play goddess
Wattpad dreams versus reality
Anyone who has managed to get the attention of their crush would agree that it’s not at all how it’s hyped up in our brains. You go out chasing butterflies and end up filling your guts with lifeless moths. The prince charming of your private Wattpad is most likely an “apolitical” sycophant with a massive wrong-coloured flag hoisted on his balcony. Maybe he is a humanist or worse—a Vivek Agnihotri fanboy.
One serial crusher in Durgapur has a track record of getting herself blocked before she can find out about all that. Her parasocial relationship with a co-worker became real when he started to make eye contact. Her name always appeared in his Instagram story views within 50 seconds of it being posted. Not to mention the incident on Holi when she bravely went up to him to paint his cheeks pink. He already had a girlfriend so the crusher was forever booted out from all his online channels. Then she found another partnered-up boy in Bengaluru to dream about. If crushes are for entertainment, what’s the harm in sharing them with other girls?
It makes total sense to act unhinged when you’re hit by a flash-in-the-pan crush. It’s when you replenish your playlist with sappy songs, click new thirst traps and parrot his name everywhere. When it starts to hurt, I recall golden advice from Fleabag’s Hot Priest—it will pass.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)