"Too Young To Have a Crush"

[Guest]

So a couple minutes ago I was having a conversation with my boyfriend. We were just being cute and flirty with each other. At one point in the conversation I said "No one's ever had a crush on me," and my boyfriend responded with, "What about that 12 year old that clearly liked you?"

So a couple months ago I ran into a little...er...trouble I suppose. There was this person I knew only over the internet. We met on an online game. We talked a bunch and we were very good friends. There was a little bit of attraction going on. One day this girl said she loved me, and I said I liked her too. That was until she told me she was 12 years old. I'm 17, 16 at the time she confessed to me. I know it's not that big of an age difference, and if we were, say, in our 20s it wouldn't be unusual for us to date. But at the age we are now, I didn't think it was appropriate. We never dated, I wasn't sure if I even really had a crush on her, I think it was more like a squish. I just really wanted to get to know her. However she said she was very much in love with me and wanted to date me. I told her to wait awhile, when she's older, and see if she still has any attraction toward me. We went back and forth for a bit until she finally agreed to wait and see. This girl never even had her period yet.

Back to my conversation with my boyfriend, I just told him that she was too young to have a crush on me. My boyfriend went on to say that sexual attraction =/= crush, puberty =/= crush, and age =/= crush. I don't disagree with him, honestly. I don't think age or type of attraction or puberty defines when you're able to have crushes. But I think you have to have at least started puberty actually have a serious, honest crush on another person. Before then, you can have tiny, fun crushes on people. I don't think the girl was "very much in love with me." I'm not her so I can't really say what she was feeling towards me, but I can't really wrap my head around a 12 year old loving someone as much as she claimed to have loved me. I guess that's because when I was her age I didn't really care for relationships or anything so I never experienced a crush.

I may be completely wrong. If I am, I deeply apologize. It's just something I can't really understand. Should age define when someone has a "true crush" on someone else? Just any thoughts on what I just said?

EDIT: I just realized that it sounded like I was implying that you have to have your sexual hormones kick in to experience an actual crush. I didn't really mean it like that, I meant something more like you have to have a certain amount of experience with your emotions and stuff, and it's normally around puberty that people begin to experiment and think about the kind of emotions they're having.

[KendraPM]

I can understand what you're saying, but I don't think twelve is too young to experience a "true crush," but I do think it's a bit too young to experience being in love. Not saying she didn't love you, but maybe not as say an 30 year old experiences romantic love. And that's not trying to say that what she is/was feeling isn't as real as when she's older. But now being 26, I can say that the love I felt as even 16 wasn't the same as the love I experience now. I don't want to belittle the feelings that one can feel at 12, as they are very real, but I think it has to do with the capasity of the human brain at that age. It hasn't finished developing. Doesn't mean she doesn't love you, but it's not the same love that you feel at your age, or that I do at mine.

[Bezzy-Loo]

Compared to the experience she had up to that point, she may well have loved you more than she'd ever love anyone before. However, I very seriously doubt it will remain that way. As she continues to experience more, her idea of love will expand as well, and she will very likely find multiple people who will have her redefining how she views and measures love.

That said, crush =/= love. A crush is just one of the bits that can lead to love. It's a focused, romantic-ish interest in a specific person that is, honestly, inherently temporary (though it can certainly get renewed). I'm sure the girl did have a crush on you.

[Robin L]

I honestly don't know whether it's possible to experience crushes at that age, though it certainly isn't impossible. I've heard multiple times about young(er) people having crushes. I do agree with Kendra that the feelings of a crush may change with age.

The age difference between you two does make it much more awkward.

[Cimmerian]

Well, you can definitely experience crushes or true crushes at that age. My first true crush on someone was when I was younger than she was and I was always fairly serious about my crushes. I didn't understand or go through the "sweet, flighty, infatuation" crush age-stage that so many pre-teens and teens did. She may very well feel strongly for you, but her definition or understanding of love may likely be very different from yours... or if not, then her perception of how she feels may change (she may realize she is/was just strongly infatuated or had a strong appreciation/friendship feeling that was stronger than others she's felt so far).

I think love has different depths so although I wouldn't discount "love" at that age, I think one's understanding of overwhelming or all-encompassing love changes over time-- mostly from life (although not necessarily romantic) experience. So her threshold of a "significant" love may be a 4 where as someone with more life experience might consider a "significant" love to have more layers of love and emotion involved and so has a higher "threshold" for the same terminology.

That being said, it's hard to think of someone at that age understanding love in the same terms as someone several years or more their senior, so I think we tend to dismiss the idea overall instead of just considering that it means something different to them.

[UncommonNonsense]

Although not the same thing, since it wasn't a sexual crush, I actually had my first crush in Kindergarten.

He was a kind, sweet boy named Tom who had big brown eyes that caught in me for some reason. I thought Tom was wonderful and I really wanted to be his friend. I was pretty convinced that I loved him and told my Mum that I wanted to marry him immediately and he and I could live together in the shed behind my parents' house. He was the first boy I invited over to my house... for my 5th birthday party.

I was 4/5 years old and I had a pretty damn intense crush going on. Granted, not a sexual crush, but a crush nonetheless.

I don't think 12 is too young to feel even a crush with a sexual component. At 12, she's in early to mid puberty (for some girls, puberty can start as young as 7, and some medications can cause puberty to start even earlier), and sexual urges are among the first pubertal changes for most kids. Its very common for 11/12/13 year old kids to report feeling sexual urges, sexual desire, dreams that have sexual themes, and in males, erections when they encounter sexual images.

Kids have very intense emotions. When they hate, it is with a white-hot ferocity rarely seen in adults. When they love, it is with their whole being, intense and powerful. Their emotions are no less valid because they're young. But because they're inexperienced, they can get themselves or the person they're crushing on in trouble fast.

[Guest]

Thank you all for your input. I actually wish I had this information before I went through all of that with the girl. I know her feelings are anything but invalid, but I still had trouble explaining to her how it just wouldn't work out without making her believe that I was disregarding her feelings. Apparently her parents have the same age difference as we do, which is why she didn't understand how us being in a relationship was "wrong."

In a way, I'm glad she had a crush on me of all people. Like I said we only knew each other over the internet, but after she confessed to me I was extremely worried about her safety. If I was actually an adult pedophile, she may have gotten herself in a world of trouble. I didn't, no, don't want her falling in love with the wrong people and getting herself hurt or scarred forever.

Luckily I think she has found interests outside of the internet, because it has been ages since we have tried to contact one another.