Crushing Experiences about Crushes

Dear Diary,

Ahaha….I should really have started all my blogs in this way, right? Seriously, if I saw an entry like that while surfing, I’d just immediately clicked on it and snoop around and be Kaypo. What would humans be without curiosity, eh? Just a monkey that keeps falling out of trees, man…

Anyways, this entry is with regards to both Anna and Jayaxe’s takes on crushes. I know I’m, like, really slow, I mean, they’ve already talked about it and left the topic all alone already, what, like 4 entries since? But I remember the comment I wrote in Jayaxe’s entry, telling him I actually love to have a crush because it makes Life more interesting and Colourful, so I realised that instead of trying to analyse the topic to shreds again (which I can never do, not being philosophical enough), I might as well talk about my crushing experiences, pun fully intended.


I had a lot of crushes, I had one almost every year of my primary school days ever since the school nurse had to round the gals up to give those ‘you-know-what’ prep talks. There was always the

• Head Prefect Crush (Cos I’m seriously attracted to people with authority)

• Class Intellect (Cos I’m seriously attracted to smart people)

• Class Athelete ( Cos I’m seriously attracted to fit people)

• Class Joker (Cos I’m just so swept off my feet with people that can play pranks on the teacher and laugh at himself come the punishment)

So in actual fact, if you were to ask me, I wasn’t exactly crushing specific people in my primary/secondary school days, I was in fact having fun liking specific types of people. I was, if anyone asks, not seriously attracted to each and everyone of them, but more like attracted to different sides of personalities that I want a boyfriend to have. The perfect boyfriend (or so I thought) is obviously the mix of all 4, which is entirely impossible. Because like Batman and The Joker, these subsets are pretty mutually exclusive, you can mix some of them, but the whole package does not exist….so subconsciously the mind says that, hence I practically can harbour about like 2 crushes at once and exchange them regularly (much like friendship in those juvenile days).

Then come JC, that was when my first serious crush started. It came out of nowhere but it had a fist like a Sumo wrestler. Wham Bam, then…..Floating Stars! I saw him and that was it. I’d tell you then, that it was probably love at first sight, but 7 enlightening years down the road, I’ll honestly say it’s Lust, Hormones and just plain Loneliness of having no one to plonk your excess restless energy on.

How serious was it? Let’s see.

• I started caring about the way I look. For like the umpteenth time, I looked into the mirror and saw a Fat Person, except that this time, I can see a Thin Person inside the Fat Person trying desperately to Come Out. So I begun to try and help her.

• Instead of usually telling All my girl friends about it, I started keeping it to myself and (OK, I’m a Girl! We do Girly things) telling my closest friends only.

• Started keeping a diary and begun a creative process. I started eating less to languish in angst and fear and hope, I wrote poems to describe this overbearing feeling of despair. I wrote tirelessly into my diary to relive the experience of having him glance once in my direction; to have him talk to me; of holding the house phone for 20 minutes plucking up my courage to call; the abysmal self-hatred for putting the receiver back on the cradle.

• Continued writing on my diary and added 2 more volumes. It was all about him, EVERYTHING, because my life revolved around him, whatever I did could somehow to connected back to him, so it bears writing and savouring.

• The crush lasted 3 years. I rejected a few suitors in University. I kept a fading Neoprint photo of us on a keychain and stuck it to my bag for all to see, I did it to stop seniors (desparate ones lah, u know, the ones that have the clause ‘anything will do, even AKK’) from asking me out. I did it for my newfound friends to find something to talk about- him.


The final year, he became my boyfriend. Why? Because I was his friend, I was his Best female friend, we did quite few things together- like helping him buy V-day prezzies for his other girl friends (and I din have any becos he tot I didn’t want any- so Bull shit). He wanted me to remain a best friend so much he was afraid, when I finally told him I like him, our friendship would end.

Towards the end, I kind of coerced him to be at my side. It’s that or GoodBye friendship. Yes, I realise that now. It was all so self-sacrificing, selfish and pathetic. I put him in a bad spot by liking him when I should have been just the Good friend. Things would not be like this if I’d treated him like a Sister. But let's face it. It was obvious to me from the start that I wanted to know him and be his friend because I really really like him.

It was also obvious from the start that he couldn’t make himself like me as much as I did him. How could he? I really was just a friend to him…I should have known better.

The nightmare then begin in earnest. I just read my diaries, some of my entries….it seems that I only wrote about the bad things, there were endless pages of heartache, hurt, resentment and fear. He was in NS, so I never saw him except on weekends, but he’d said he wanted to hang out with his platoon mates, go pubbing, clubbing etc. In any case, he was too tired to go out, he wanted to be alone, he seldom returned my calls, he forgot it was my BDay, V-Day, Anniversary. Sorry dear, forgive me pls? Won’t do it again.

It was a bad time. Suddenly, the crush that I had, something that fuelled me and made my world achingly bright and colourful, had turned grey. I remember seeing the greyness, the emptiness, and strangely, the loneliness of being in a relationship but not exactly having one. I started thinking he didn’t like me (which is pretty accurate actually), I started asking my male friends about Male thinking. I started feeling like extra baggage. I thought I looked ugly when I'm standing next to him (hmm…that wasn’t far from the truth either). I felt worthless and really low on morale. You couldn't have made me feel high even if you put me in en elevator. I started thinking and crying over something that was so plainly obvious but which I refused to see. I refuse to acknowledge that part of it was my fault, that I made the 2 of us miserable.

Out of the greyness, I saw him finally, as a real person, with human faults. For once, there was no bright–blue aura of super-hero worship surrounding him anymore. He was callous not because he wanted to hurt me, he just didn’t know how to deal with me, the ever-loving, supportive girlfriend. He was tactless because he still treats me like a friend. He gave me the cold shoulder because he did not know such actions break me, because I never did any of these things back to him. I was like a Hush Puppy Lapdog! I always gave in, I supported him no end, I encouraged him to go out with his friends and I always always asked him if he was free, if he wanted to go out with me because he never once asked me out on his own…I really should have been sufficiently warned, you know....but aiyah..first Loves...

Then one day he said, ‘I want to study law.’

I said, 'Great! You filled in for NUS already?'

'Er...no, I want to study overseas,'

'Why not NUS?'

'Because it's not...good enough.'

'Really?'

'Yes...I think so.'

Then I knew it was time to let go. However much I felt like ranting and raving at this poor choice to split us up across a few continents, I wouldn’t want to be labelled as the one who dragged him back, and kept him from fulfilling his dream. I'll never live the guilt down, it wasn't as if the whole thing was rosy-tinted anyway- it was all...grey. So I told him I fully support his decision, I helped him vet his admission essays; I borrowed books on how to study abroad for him. I did everything within my power to help him make that step. Then I upped and left him.

It’ll be great to say that I dumped him, but truth to tell, I guess I was already dumped long before that. I might be in a relationship then, but it felt more like a restraining order to keep me from getting to close to him.

Eventually, of cos things turned out really well. He’s doing very very well right now. We are still on good terms and he calls me every now and then to update. He got himself a girlfriend, whom he told me is a fantastic person. He said he’s learnt a lesson between us and that he’ll never treat her the way he treated me. This, I thought, was one of the best things he could have said to me. It told me we had grown up and worked outwards. Basically, we came away from it learning a lot about ourselves. I learnt that it was wrong to place idol-worship as real love, to mistake it to be something deep and meaningful, when all it did was to blind me from seeing that we are totally incompatible. I learnt that I shouldn't be looking for Mr Perfect, but instead, for Mr Perfect-for-me.

I say it now that since then, I never wrote another diary entry. Which is a good thing, because I no longer have any bad experiences I care to put into words anymore. Since then, I’ve again had a few crushes—u know, the Dean's Lister, the Hostelite Dude, the Orientation Leader, but I’ve learnt to handle them the way they should be handled- lightly and happily and above all, secretly.

Because sooner or later, the target changes.

But fortunately, the colours never fade away.

Out,

AKK