I have strong views on the subject of love (not that that is particularly unique). They probably aren't groundbreaking for folks who apply much thought to the subject rather than allowing Disney to tell them what it is. But that's not really the subject I'm gunning for right here. I mean this to be the preface, indicating that there is a thing that I refer to as love, and that I try to restrict my use of that word to very specific circumstances. I say this because I feel that my approach is not the same as that of the general population, who in my opinion are far too ready to use that word when others will suffice.

From a very young age (five, maybe six) I have found that I infatuate easily. I in fact had a crush on one girl from kindergarten all the way through my education prior to college. It was only when I specifically went out of my way to see her after graduating from high school and just before I went away to college that the 'spell' was broken. She was not what I had remembered her as anymore.

We had an oddly intertwined life prior to that, likely only in my eyes. We attended the same ridiculous private Christian school in our early years (at least in kindergarten). We ended up being in school again at the same public elementary school within two or three years. We went to the same middle school for sixth grade, but our paths split from there. She stayed, I went to another one, and then I went to the other high school in town. Really, from there my contact with her was with her mother, who I saw in grocery stores or in school environs (she must have worked hard to support her family, working alternately as a grocery store clerk and a bus driver).

I knew the address they lived at, and went by there once or twice just to see it while we were in elementary school and I lived nearby. Kind of stalker behavior, but I wasn't peeking in any windows. I just wanted to see where she lived. I felt connected to her in spite of not really being so. The infatuation faded with lack of contact once I reached high school, but whenever I saw her mother I asked after the girl. I forget how I found out where she worked when I wanted to see her before leaving for college. My vanity tells me it was something relatively clever, though I doubt it was anything more elaborate than hearing it from someone.

In college, this behavior continued in some form or another. I moved from one crush object to the next, based on my own internal criteria. I knew then that I was crush-prone, having gone through plenty of them while in high school that I haven't elaborated on. That behavior still continues. I don't really know what to do about it, or if it's something I need to be concerned about.

I've found of late that the primary component of my older self in determining crush-worthiness has been predicated by writing ability. Well, not so much predicated as I've found myself 'crushing' on ladies who write well. Or perhaps not even well so much as just in a way that I like. Still, the thing that I'm getting at here is that I become infatuated with women who write. The insight that it gives me about the person writing is what I think I'm sensing and latching on to, but as yet it has been completely unhelpful when it comes to making actual connections. All of these amazing writer babes have been black holes into which I have poured hours of thought, affection, or really just obsession, into and gotten nothing from them except my awkward attempts to befriend these beguiling beauties. In the end, I have nothing to show for it but a feeling of failure and knowing that there is a person out in the world that I found very attractive for the thoughts that were in her head as well as the body which carried it, and that the relationship we have with each other will never become intimate or romantic in any way, but will instead deteriorate.

I find this extremely distressing!