"Distance, for me, kindles desire. When I was growing up it was with my crushes on teachers that preoccupied me, not the freckle-faced boy's fumbling kiss behind the bushes at recess. Not what was close and possible. It was these older men with their mysterious lives whom I invested with the power of protecting me.
It has always been this way, and sometimes I think it will always be. At almost any given time I will have a crush on a man who is somehow impossible. The word "crush" is appropriate, because the feeling is entirely adolescent in it's short-lived intensity. The object of my distant affections is likely someone I have met only a few times, someone who displays no interest in me. He has no inkling of the feelings I have for him; quite possibly he would be startled and embarrassed if he knew. I never express my interest, since if he responded that would instantly end my infatuation. If he is married, he will have shown himself to be the sort of married man who has affairs, and who is therefor untrustworthy. If he isn't married, his availability alone would send me running. Besides, if I actually got to know him better, I would have to acknowledge that his real personality bears no resemblance to the inordinately loving and attentive one I had given him in my thoughts.
Although these crushes are now without some of the heartache and unrequited love, I do enjoy them, in a way. They are innocent, uncomplicated by sex, or spending the night, or the daily challenges of a relationship. They are curiously pure; my imagination rarely indulges in anything more intimate than kissing and cuddling. As I write this, I am nursing a crush on a middle-aged married man. He is successful and driven, obsessed with his work. [...] I would welcome his presence into my life, but the sensations he stirs in me make friendship impossible. At the same time, only by getting to know him better, understanding who he is independent of my fantasy, could put him into human perspective and end my infatuation."
-Inside Out: Reflections of a Life So Far by Evelyn Lau
"Crushes allow us to step outside ourselves and view ourselves as we believe the crush might. Very often, a crush is not about the other person, but about us and how we think we are in the world. By looking at this reflection of ourselves through another person, we find a way to achieve self-love without actual self-esteem, a way to admire oneself without admitting that is what you are really doing. Crushes are about fantasy colliding with reality, the fantasy of who we think we are matched against the reality of who we are. Other people have little to do with it."
-I'm the One That I Want by Margaret Cho
"I know there’s this part of us that thinks we don’t deserve to be loved. So we fall in love with someone we know we can’t have, who’s never going to love us, and we fantasize about the day when he realizes and sees all that he’s been missing, and all our dreams come true. Only that day never comes, and before you know it, it’s your fortieth birthday, your fiftieth birthday, and you’re still alone. Don’t let that happen to you. Love someone for real. Someone who loves you."
- Ted, Queer as Folk, episode 1.11
"If Jordan Catalano is nearby, my entire body knows it. Like one of those dogs that point. I'll keep talking and stuff, but my mind won't even know what I'm saying. I keep wondering if there's a term for this."
- Angela, My So-Called Life, episode 1.02
"But that's the part that's so unfair. I have nothing else on my mind. How come I have to be the one sitting around analyzing him in like microscopic detail, and he gets to be the one with other things on his mind."
- Angela, My So-Called Life, episode 1.02
Rickie : She's not saying that she...
Angela : I'm not saying...see there's thinking about him, right? which is what I do. All the time. Like this...
Rickie : Obsession.
Rayanne : Right. So?
Angela : So, it keeps me going or something. Like I need it just to get through the day. It...It's just ...
Rickie : It's an obsession.
Angela : Right. And, and if you make it real, it's it's not the same. It's not, it's not yours anymore. I don't know, maybe I'd rather have the fantasy than have him.
- My So-Called Life, episode 1.02
"His name is a word on top of a page and it sigifies a poem started"
- Mary, The Rules of Attraction, by Bret Eastion Ellis