When it comes to relationships, it’s necessary to read people’s emotions. But what about understanding your own emotions? To some, this may come easy. But to others, like myself, sorting through all of the hormones and emotions to figure out exactly how you feel about a certain person can seem impossible. Friendships, crushes and love are like inseparable friends—easily mistaken for each other and often traveling together.
In an attempt to separate and quantify attraction, crushes and love, I interviewed students to learn about others’ experiences determining when they have a crush.
How do you know you have a crush?
“I think it depends if it’s someone I’ve known for a while or if it’s at first sight. There tends to be a moment when we first talk one on one where I get the warm fuzzy feeling and my heart beats quicker. I think I know for sure when I have a crush when their name is the first thing I think of when I get up in the morning. Also, because I’m an actress, I think I know who my crush is/ when that person has changed when I’m doing romantic monologues and using a substitution.” theatre freshman Natalya Ribovich said.
“I get nerves, can’t make eye contact, and kinda wanna be closer to them for no reason,” physics freshman Tanaya Gondhalekar said.
“I think it’s hard to know when you have a crush and even harder to know that you’re in love until you’re right in the middle of it all. For me at least, it’s easy to deny that I like someone and admitting love is even harder but I think the biggest clue is that you find yourself wanting to support and make your loved one better in an unselfish way,” engineering freshman Elizabeth Claypool said.
“I would say that having a crush is when you think there’s something obviously special about the other person and every time you think, see, or hear of them you get a tiny feeling of butterflies in your belly,” English freshman Zack Kariya said.
“You know that you have a crush when it draws you to someone because of something that you can’t quite define, maybe a tendency to make you smile or a calm charisma that makes your mind focus on them a little bit too much,” engineering freshman Helene Willits said.
“When you can’t stop thinking about them? When you wonder about all the stuff you don’t know about them?” anthropology freshman Fiona Papile said.
My personal experience
I was hoping that researching crushes and love would give me a better grasp on my own feelings, and while partially it did, I still feel a lot of the uncertainty I always have. However, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. While you should only enter into a relationship if your heart’s in it, at some point, you just have to trust and go with your gut reaction.
Although a lot of these quotes have similarities, everyone has slightly different experiences. This goes to show how everyone reacts to life differently, and you can’t expect to fall for someone in the same way as a friend or movie character. Sure, it’s scary to feel uncertain about your feelings, but that is simply the reality of life. You have to be willing to throw your heart and soul into everything and hope for the best. The best thing you can do is trust yourself, and if you make mistakes, be kind enough to forgive yourself. While it would be easy to depend on the advice of others, in the end, all you can do is tune into your own feelings and wait.