darling, it's called a sugar rush

Hello,

In an attempt to reinsert whimsy in my life, I have decided to have a crush.

There is something decidedly childish about saying it — a crush. It brings to mind homecoming dates and schoolyard games. We’ve since found more mature or more trendy ways to express the same feeling, but we never really leave it behind. We want to be infatuated, we want the way it shocks our nervous system. You become so aware of them, if they talk to you or if they don’t. Sitting next to them, you think about all the ways you could brush against them and sink into warmth. You indulge yourself in the fantasy that they may think of you in the same way.

Choosing to have a crush feels like growing up and realizing that you can have dessert for breakfast. It’s a sugar rush, every time.

I don’t think I had my first real crush until I was 15, and it was awful and embarrassing. As a teenager who so desperately wanted control and to not appear frivolous, it was nigh impossible for me to think of it as a good thing. Recently, I’ve grown tired of the humdrum of random dates and the banality of one-night stands. I want the whimsy of having a crush, the simple joy found in over-awareness of another person. I was, by most measures an overly cynical and overly serious child. I’m trying to reproduce, in a sliver of time, the naivety that teenagers have towards love and life.

The last time that I attempted to foster a crush just to make work more entertaining, it fell apart the moment that the other person expressed interest. It lost its sparkle and, brought into the real world, demanded more from me than I wanted. This time I have selected a person that will leave Paris again by the end of the weekend, in order to ensure that my daydreams are protected from reality.

The thing about the art of crushing is that it only lasts until action is taken. A crush implies a certain level of discretion and ceases being a crush when it is spoken, whether it’s confronted with reciprocation or rejection.

This weekend I wanted to participate in the thrill of it — the childlike version. I wanted to allow myself to hang my mood upon another’s regard for me without any expectation. I think generally as an adult, infatuation is expected to lead either to love or sex, and I wanted neither. I needed the ease of a teenage crush. I wanted to be infatuated with this person, spend as much time with them as I could, and then let go, let it be.

It is possible that the sensation I’m describing could be summed up as pining but I disagree. Pining is far more stressful because it necessitates a deep desire for the other person to reciprocate, though something is keeping it from happening. I have been careful in my curated crush to not allow it to fall onto this side. I don’t want to be with them, I don’t even want them to know. The last time I felt intense pining, it was terrible, sending me into fits of despair, but at the same time, the fantasy of it allowed me to paint the world in rose. When I felt like they cared about me too, every city street shined with it, like a thousand candles in the night. In the tradition of Dante, I would produce pages and pages of scribbles on this unexpressed feeling alone. I am chasing this kind of sugar rush.

This feeling may be entirely artificial, an exercise of forcing limerence upon myself, but oh boy, was it fun. Even just thinking about my texts felt unbelievably novel after so long. Should I wait to respond? If I use this word instead of that, will it show my hand?

There was a moment on Sunday night when I wanted to invite them to spend more time with me, to prolong this feeling as long as I could before I had to return to the mundanity of my life here most of the time. I didn’t because I think at the end of the day, I want this feeling to be mine. It is no great secret that I’ve always had an estranged relationship with romantic emotions and intimacy. Perhaps this feeling is already known to the rest of you, but I have never been one for casual crushes. To that end, this was a solo practice, a stretching of my own ability to accept that perhaps, at my core, I am a closet romantic. And that’s enough.

Now the weekend is over, and they are leaving, and I am relinquishing my crush to the universe. This newsletter acts as a cleansing. Let this weekend lie in the ground with all the other fruitless crushes of time immemorial. Yet, I cannot thank it enough for its deliverance of childlike wonder.

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Girl reluctantly goes to an international school in Paris. Meets Boy. They fall in love. This was my favorite, indulgent romance novel during high school. It is a perfect encapsulation of the teenage romance genre. There is a pivotal scene in this novel when Girl goes to Point Zero in Paris. There is a simple plaque in the ground in front of the Notre Dame, which demarcates the center of Paris. It’s apparently a tradition to stand on top of it and make a wish. Point Zero has been inaccessible since the burning of Notre Dame. I am still waiting for my moment with it.

“Where’s your whimsy? Where’s your fucking whimsy?”
(this is a meme. i hope you know it lol)

As always, I hope the universe remembers to treat you with gentle hands,
Jessie