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Develop crushes on people you know you can't have?


Bellaitalia

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I have to be really careful because the majority of crushes I get is when I am talking to people who have problems in their lives. It's also called "White Knight Syndrome" and for me it is hard to understand why I get crushes on certain people (whether I have a crush on them because of who they are or because of their problems in life.) I have liked many people that I know that I can't have simply because many of those people have trust issues along with other things that prevent a healthy relationship from blossoming.

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Crushes or fantasies towards people I can or can not have (fictional or real).... is something I very much so try to avoid. When I was younger I made this an advanced sport to the point that my real life became a painful thing. Even if you "get" the person you've been crushing on they will never live up to the fantasy that you surrounded them in- thus a kind of dissapointment or catastrophe that you have only yourself to blame.

I didnt shelter myself in terms of experiences with love or my attempts at it. In essence I stripped away the sugar coated world I made for myself in an effort to know REAL LIFE. A life lived is one with its sorrows, joys, betrayls, and victories- wash, rinse, repeat. So that now, when I try to fantasize or pretend scenarios with people, my real life experience butts in and shouts,"This is ridiculous! This is nothing like real life- stop it!"

And I must say, there is something deeply sad inside me because I often feel pretty ordinary. I have doubts that the person I imagined or the person Im crushing on, would take a chance to deeply care about me. Now, I dont think I'm trash by any means- but people are not exactly lined up outside my door. That, and being on the asexual side and whatever, I cant see someone jumping at the oppertunity to risk being enamoured with me.

And even with the cases where they are, the romance or fling is so short lived I often wonder why it started in the first place. I dont know that romantic love is worth it, even with fictional characters where things feel moderately safe and easy to alter. I often feel I am torturing myself with the activity and I would much rather find a kind of happiness I can literally hang onto.

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I have a problem that is similar to what you are experiencing - except in my case much of the time I crush on people who are available in the traditional sense of the word (i.e. no spouse, significant other, not a Catholic priest, no obvious reason why they would be unwilling or unable to respond to me in that way) but for whatever reason have no interest in having a romantic relationship with me. I've also had it go the other way a few times - guys who were interested in me but there was just no spark there and I would only have been interested in them as platonic friends.

So in a nutshell it's a related issue I think...I totally suck at picking people (though a crush never seems like a choice :rolleyes: as it just seems to happen) who would be willing to have a romantic relationship with me. Worse yet is I can often never find an obvious deterrent (like those aforementioned reasons) at the beginning of the crush that would make me realize "whoa, wait a minute here - this guy has a wife/gf/he's gay, etc, this isn't going to work". In fact the last crush did turn out to be gay (or perhaps bi, though he was with a man at the time, so I have always just assumed he was gay) and he didn't bother to mention his partner until long after I had been led on and and flirted with him for some time (hence I questioned that he might have been bi, as I wouldn't expect a gay man to lead a woman on for several weeks). Also pretty sure he was out as he had no trouble telling me later on that he was going home for the holidays to visit his partner... <_<

I have a gay male friend (not the same guy who led me on! -no idea of what became of him as I lived in a different state when I met him) who also crushes on people he can't possibly have, but his situation is more like the OP's in that he most surely knows that his object of affection is unavailable. One time he was crushing on a married Baptist minister who had 5 kids :o - imo he couldn't possibly have picked a more unavailable person to fall for. He always seems to end up crushing on married heterosexual men and as far as I know he's a sexual himself. So this very vexing sort of situation seems to happen with both sexuals and asexuals. I suppose some peoples' reasoning may have to do with safety, though I've always been puzzled by my own similar issue because I have no conscious way of knowing that the person isn't available (even if that means they are fully un-attached and uncommitted but just not ever going to be interested in me) when the crushes begin. Very frustrating. :(

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Ironically, most of the real people I've had squishes on, I've ended up dating at some point or other. But, as a general rule, the more I get to know people, the less I like them. So, for some reason or other, I've stopped dating them. Interestingly, though, I never had a squish on my partner initially, but as we got to dating, I've become more and more enveloped by squish-dom.

My crushes and squishes on fictional characters are a bit, well, extreme. They hit hard and fast. When I find one, I focus intently on that character, to the detriment of all else. They're in my (always non-sexual) fantasies, I research them obsessively, I collect images of them. There are three main ones I've had in my life: Daniel Jackson, of Stargate SG-1, Spencer Reid, of Criminal Minds, and now Loki from The Avengers. But as they're fictional characters, they're the epitome of "can't have".

^THIS. This is almost exactly what I do (including the crush on Hiddleston's Loki XD).

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seinneadair

I'm a weird variation of the "want what you can't have" attraction because I always get crushes and squishes on fictional characters. :lol: I almost never get crushes on actual people (Though I'm sure part of that is due to being partially on the aromantic spectrum), but when it comes to characters from cartoons or played by actors, I get attached ridiculously easily.

With me, they tend to be dead or fictional. I'm a historian, so it's an occupational hazard. I have a whole harem of historical and literary characters...

Oh my goodness, yes! Historical people are so unattainable but so fascinating! Except I'm somewhere between theology and musicology (and not particularly romantic), so I usually end up with squishes on dead composers (of sacred music). Or historical people from significant religious controversies - although that may only be because that's the history I know well.

Oh, and before I knew about asexuality I definitely used to fake crushes on people (usually people I already had squishes on) who I knew were unavailable because that way there was no threat of having to act on it, and then my parents and friends would stop harassing me to try to find out who I had a crush on. It worked very well.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I seem to be a bit like this. Im pretty sure im asexual. When I say someone is attractive I am pretty sure I mean aesthetically, since i have never really understood when people say someone is "fit" or "hot". I know that if I was to have a SO I would have to find them asethetically attractive. However, most of the people of the opposite sex i have found remotely asethtically attractive have turned out to be homosexual, I have never had the desire to form a relationship with any of these people though. I used to think had crushes on people of the same gender as myself but through reading this website have realised these were squishes. (ie a desire for a deep friendship , no romantic or sexual attraction) However, when i have had these they are usually on people who would be unavailable. Mostly they have been married, or in a relationship, or someone who it would be totally inappropriate to have a relationship with.

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I currently have a crush on my best friends boyfriend. Very unobtainable. :I

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  • 3 months later...

Crushing on guys that are off limits is second nature to me. Either they barely aknowledged my exixtence, had girlfriends, or didn't live up to the potential I thought they had.

To this day I've never been kissed and never had a boyfriend because I don't know how to be intimate with the opposite sex and it scares me a bit.

I think I unconciously crush on these people as a defense mechanism. Wanting someone that I can't have sort of prevents me from possibly encountering my phobia (i.e. physical/emotional intimacy).

I think it has something to do with the way I was raised. I grew up in a household where we never talked about things like romantic relationships, sex etc ... So I didn't really know what it meant to have a crush on someone when I was younger, I just thought it was weird and I was going crazy for a while, LOL.

Adding that to the fact that I have trust issues with people in general, and I'm too demanding. I expect too much from people and situations, and if someone or something doesn't live up to my expectations I lose my patience easily. But lately I have realized that I should just not give a crap anymore because life doesn't owe me anything.

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Yep I'm in the same boat. I usually have overtly obsessive crushes on fictional/anime characters, rarely real people. If I do have a crush on a actual person, usually it is someone waaaaaay out of my league :(

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I had developed a crush on one of my good friends, but they were off-limits for many reasons. The first being that they were usually in a relationship. The second being they lived far away for most of the time. And the third being that because of the first two, I learned that they are okay with messing around with others in a relationship for physical closeness. She's sexual, and something like cheating would ultimately come up a relationship between us.

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WhenSummersGone

I get this all the time, especially for celebrities I will never meet. In school I would get crushes on guys out of my league, as people say. I didn't think, and still don't think, I'm attractive enough for some guys. I kind of like though that I can get crushes on any guy regardless of what status they have. I know well enough though that my crushes on certain guys will just stay a crush. I can't be interesting to all guys.

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I can totally relate to you. >.< Annoying, isn't it? For me personally, I think this tends to happen because I don't want to actually act on it. If a guy is too clingy and too into me, chances are the topic of sex will arise sooner or later. I'm sick of having to come out and getting laughed at or accused of "making it up" If I fall for someone who is unavailable, it does end up hurting me, but at least I know I don't have to worry about sex. It's pretty bad, I know.

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Lots of people claim to have celebrity "crushes", but the only one I'll admit to is this.... (er, Aylson Hannigan, not Jason Biggs, that is)

Actually, it might just be female flautists generally..

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byanyotherusername

I used to be attracted to my friend's boyfriends in high school a lot, though it never developed into an actual crush with any of them. If they were cool people who treated my friends well, I found that very attractive--not to mention that I hated when guys were into me, so the fact that they weren't interested put me at ease, making them even more attractive. XD If they became available/interested, it would have been a real turn off. :lol:

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I don´t really have crushes that much but when I have this is what usually happens. Its also not about wanting the unobtainable because I had no idea that was the case until much later..

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  • 4 weeks later...

I have to be really careful because the majority of crushes I get is when I am talking to people who have problems in their lives. It's also called "White Knight Syndrome" and for me it is hard to understand why I get crushes on certain people (whether I have a crush on them because of who they are or because of their problems in life.) I have liked many people that I know that I can't have simply because many of those people have trust issues along with other things that prevent a healthy relationship from blossoming.

I wanted to thank you for this post. I learned something about myself just now.

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Yeah... though I'm not sure if it's some subconscious process or just bad luck! I don't get crushes often, but I have one at the moment on a woman I see regularly (through a hobby; I'm not friends with her) who has a boyfriend. This is a stronger crush than I've had in a long time and it's a bit distracting.

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So I was just wondering how common it is for all of you to develop crushes on people that are impossible to date or "hard to get". I find myself liking guys with girlfriends, bc I am able to get closer and feel more comfortable around them. And also guys that are players and aren't the relationship type. I HATE myself for being this way, bc I always end up getting hurt. I get completely infatuated with these guys only to get let down and a significant drop in my self esteem. It's like a vicious cycle...and I completely reject those who are super interested and are overly nice to me. I don't get it at all. I'm only sexually attracted VERY rarely and it's with the guys who I know wont be "too" into me or clingy. I don't know why I am so afraid of intimacy and have issues with space. Can anyone else relate or try to explain?

Yes, I do this too! Except, with me it's even more irritating. I will like guys I can't have, then if circumstances change, and I -can- have them, and they demonstrate interest in me, i immediately cease to like them. It is as though the romantic attraction itself is tied up in their unattainability. Very frustrating. For everyone involved.

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Gordon Bennett, I know EXACTLY what you guys mean!

My 'crush on someone I can't have' is for the gentleman on my avatar, the Swedish rock musician Tomas Ledin. I have 'loved' him ever since I saw a picture of him in a magazine early in 1980. He represented his nation in that year's Eurovision Song Contest (came 10th) and I couldn't take my eyes off him throughout the entire performance and as a result I even dreamed of him that night.

He is now 60 and still handsome and I am still mad for him, even though he has been married for 29 years and I constantly download pictures and YouTube videos of him.

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I'm rarely, rarely attracted to people in any way. When I do, they're always unattainable. A friend of mine at school who has a girlfriend of ten months. And Eric Burdon of The Animals. I tend to get fascinated with people more than I am attracted to them per se; the latter evolves very, very gradual development of such, but initially there's only this sense of "WOW, THEY ARE AN INTERESTING PEOPLE."

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I'm rarely, rarely attracted to people in any way. When I do, they're always unattainable.

Maybe there´s a connection between these two things. If you´re very rarely attracted to someone it´s highly improbable they could feel the same for you. If you were attracted to 500 people so far, there´s a chance some of them could be attracted to you too.

I kissed Eric Adams :wub: , go to bloody Hell with "people I can´t have"! I can! :twisted: :lol: :lol:

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Guest Scarlet Spider

Yeah, and it happens all the time. Even now in school i still think about all the other women i could have, instead of just having. Why? Because i'm sort of a visionary and i like to weigh my options. So occasionally i'll think about whether they like me first, and then i'll move to whether we might have the same interests. It might sound complicated but that's just how i like to analyze a scenario in my mind before playing it out. Though, i'm still new to the concept of "just friends," seeing as how the woman i like might not think of me the same way, so i keep it simple. :P

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Lots of people claim to have celebrity "crushes", but the only one I'll admit to is this.... (er, Aylson Hannigan, not Jason Biggs, that is)

Ooooh yes. Especially as Willow Rosenberg in BtVS. :blush:

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Well, on the plus side, after reading through the fora here, I belong somewhere in the asexual world, but have no idea where yet.

But I can relate to this a whole bunch. I always start getting attracted to lesbians because there are no expectations with them. No, "Oh, he's not flirting, so I'll go talk to someone else since he's not interested in me," nuttiness. :blink:

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I always develop crushes on gay guys. Usually best friends I see everyday. I hate myself for it.

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An interesting topic!

I always start getting attracted to lesbians because there are no expectations with them. No, "Oh, he's not flirting, so I'll go talk to someone else since he's not interested in me," nuttiness. :blink:

Yes, this might be at least some of it. Me too find unattainable people (wrong age, gender, orientation, religion, you name it) easier to get along with because there are no expectations. I don't have to be on my toes all the time in fear of hurting their feelings, mistaking some of their signals or finding ourselves in embarassing situations etc. because I'm not expecting them to be potentially sexually interested in me. I'm seriously crap at recognizing flirting especially when it's aimed towards me! :) As a result I end up interacting more with these people and therefore more likely to have friendships with and crushes/squishes on them. (A good example of this is my best friend whom I also happen to have "squished" on - a highly religious presumably heterosexual female. As a friendship ours rocks, but I definitely won't pursue a relationship - first of all being a woman myself!)

However I think this might be a shared thing with aces and sexual people. Sexual people must have other things on their minds as sex, don't you think? I'm just making random guesses, but coud it also the other way around? That for example people who are in heterosexual relationships find asexuals/homosexuals easier to talk to about all kinds of subjects than other straight people?

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Squished on? :huh:

Yeah, I've liked people who were unattainable. Currently trying to get over one. And this is the only time I've ever fallen in love. :(

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I'm a weird variation of the "want what you can't have" attraction because I always get crushes and squishes on fictional characters. laugh.gif I almost never get crushes on actual people (Though I'm sure part of that is due to being partially on the aromantic spectrum), but when it comes to characters from cartoons or played by actors, I get attached ridiculously easily.

Same here!

It probably makes me weird but I get very attached to the point of obsession! And these attachments often last for years.

Amelia x

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So I was just wondering how common it is for all of you to develop crushes on people that are impossible to date or "hard to get".

As a teenager I'd pretty much have a crush on a different boy each year. Nothing at all these days that I would term a crush, although I'm capable of going *squee* for certain actors because I think they're good-looking, but it's not like I want to date them or anything.

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