How do you define the term "crush?"

[Sam W]

"Crush" is one of those words that a lot of folks use, but the definition is really variable from person to person. So, inquiring minds want to know: what does it "having a crush" on someone mean to you?

For me, crush is closer to admiration that anything else. When I have a crush on someone, it doesn't necessarily mean I'm attracted to them (although often it does). It means that I think they're cool and that I would very much like for them to think I am cool.

[Heather]

A feeling of want for someone in some way, and coming only -- so far as I can tell -- from me, not from them, or based on feelings from an ongoing relationship of some kind with them?

Though now that I say that last bit, I'm all "Hmmmm, " because I can definitely think of times I have been around someone I have been involved with for a long time where a feeling I'm having about them -- usually when they are doing something I admire or find endearing -- is a feeling I'd identify as crushing.

But still, there's something core to crushing I'd say is one-sided or one-way, where it's about someone else, but really all about me and my feelings, rather than something reciprocal.

(Or can there be reciprocal crushing? Obviously, this is one of those rare times where I am actually having a very hard time defining something, even just for myself!)

[Onionpie]

I consider a crush to be those early feelings of being interested in someone -- you've just met them and feel some sort of connection, you like something about them and it makes you feel compelled to get to know them more. I'd definitely agree with heather's definition that it's kind of about you and your feelings, before you know if it's reciprocal. I'd say it comes before there's any substantial relationship between me and the other person, it's the feelings of "wow from the little glimpse I've gotten they seem really awesome and we click, I want to start to build a relationship here and see if they're as awesome as they first seem!" It's sort of an anticipatory feeling, in a way? Like, I get all warm and fuzzy because the impression I've gotten of a person makes me anticipate awesome conversations and lots of laughs to come. And then once I get to know the person better, if they ARE awesome, then it becomes something different than a "crush". Then there's an actual relationship that has developed between us, and it's about the fact that I DO know them, rather than that I want to get to know them.

[Infinitea]

I agree that for me the word crush definitely has a one-sided or early stages feel to it. It makes me think of butterflies and that excited newness that you feel when you've started noticing your attraction and interest in someone, particularly in the stages before you know if the feelings are returned. And I agree with Onionpie that for me there's also an element of not really knowing the person, or having these feelings based on limited interactions with them. There's something intense about crushing and something that's perhaps based more in what-if than what-is.

That said, I have the same issue as Heather where, despite this being my baseline definition of a crush, I've also felt myself "crushing" over someone I'm with or know well. In reflecting on that though I would say that I usually use the term crushing in those circumstances to convey a kind of resurgence or welling up of those same kind of feelings of newness and butterflies and intensity that you get in those early stages. A bit like fangirling over someone you actually know.

[moonlight]

I agree with the general sense of what others have been saying. Crushes often occur without knowing how the crushee feels about me and at times before I know them well. However, I also have crushed on people that I know quite well. So I think, a better definition for myself would be liking someone romantically (and perhaps sexually) and being in early stages. It is liking someone but not wanting to act on those feelings.

Personally, I have expereinced reciprocal crushing, but this was back in grade school. I think that, generally, as people get older, when they share reciprocal crushing feelings, they tend more often to move beyond the reciprocal crushing stage into some form of a relationship (or rule out a relationship).