Written By: Laura
So, what is a friend crush, you may be thinking? Glad you asked! A Friend Crush is the desire to be super-close besties with another person. Most of this is the same as a Regular Crush–whenever you see your Friend Crush, you long about your possible life together as best friends. You’re convinced that this person is your spirit animal. You may even think about them when they’re not around, or get anxiety when they are around, because you fear saying the wrong thing and messing up the friendship. You probably laugh a little too hard at their jokes, and you probably try a little too hard to really put your “best self” forward. The bottom line is, while you enjoy the company of this person right now, you want to take your relationship to the next level–from Acquaintance to Friend, or from Friend to Best Friend. Of course, the one difference between a Friend Crush and a Regular Crush–and this is an important distinction–is that you don’t want to have the babies of your Friend Crush. A Friend Crush is STRICTLY platonic.
Just like a Regular Crush, you can wind up with a Friend Crush on a wide variety of people–only, since sexual orientation isn’t really at play with a Friend Crush, absolutely anybody is fair game. Guy, girl, young, old, person you see on a regular basis, person you saw once, but they had really cool shoes, person in a position of authority, homeless person on the street. Heck, a Friend Crush doesn’t even have to be human. One of my most tragic tales of UFC (Unrequited Friend Crush) involved my friend’s dog. I wanted to be best friends, and that bitch Pepper just ignored me over and over again 🙁
Many of the rules for romantic attraction are actually at play when it comes to who we’ll develop a Friend Crush on. Reciprocity, for one, can be very important. If we can tell that somebody thinks that we’re the shit (it happens to me about once every two years), we’re way more likely to think that they’re the shit, too. If we have a lot in common with somebody, we’re more likely to think, “Hey! That person’s cool! I want to be best friends!” Along those same lines, we are more likely to get Friend Crushes on people that share similar attributes to us, such as similar senses of humor. For example, one of my personal rules of thumb is to never take a potential Friend Crush seriously until I play Cards Against Humanity with that person. If they’re just as terrible as I am, then I know that we’ll get along just fine. Additionally, if we see someone awesome on a regular basis, it gives us more opportunity to be exposed to their awesomeness–the proximity effect, ladies and gentlemen.
So now that we’ve gone over the definition of a friend crush and the factors that influence it, let’s talk about some of the potential complications of having a Friend Crush. Unfortunately, there are many people out there that don’t know the difference between a Friend Crush and a Regular Crush, or seem to get them mixed up. To clarify things, I’ve made a simple flow chart for your convenience. Assuming that we’re talking about a Potential Crush here:
Any questions?
Another complication, however, is that somebody can misinterpret your feelings of liking for them. For example, it’s tricky having a Friend Crush on somebody who has a Regular Crush on you, or having a Regular Crush on somebody who has a Friend Crush on you, and by “tricky,” I mean it’s, “one of the most fucking annoying things ever.” But, hey, you know what they say–“Don’t ever let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game, even though having your heart ripped from your chest and stomped on will probably be a little more traumatic than striking out once in a game that will probably have no impact on anybody ever, unless you’re a pro MLB player, which you probably aren’t.”
So how do you do that, anyway? How do you tell somebody that you have a Friend Crush on them? Well, to put it very simply, you don’t–not directly, anyway. First, you have to get a good read on your Friend Crush’s personality. Do they seem like the type of person that would appreciate Aggressive Friendship Advances, or would too much AFA freak them out? For the record, AFA include taking the initiative to go on coffee/lunch dates, referring to somebody as, “Girl,” way too soon, asking for somebody’s number without any specific reason besides wanting to hang out later, and excessive platonic flirting (“Oh my God I loveeeeeee your dress). Everybody is going to handle AFA differently. For example, I personally LOVE AFA. If you make AFA towards me and you’re not a weird or mean person, I will automatically love you forever. That’s just how it is. So, some good signs that your Friend Crush would appreciate AFA are that they’re in a sorority (seriously, anybody who’s in a sorority is so used to AFA that that’s pretty much all they know anymore), they’re in some kind of organization or club that requires a lot of extraversion and outgoingness, and, most importantly, that they’re okay with being a little weird, but not overly so.
Of course, if you’re not comfortable with AFA, or if you don’t think they would be, that’s totally fine too. Just like you would with a regular crush, start small. Hang out with them, add them on Facebook, slip in subtle statements like, “Ha ha ha we should totally be best friends! Ha ha no but actually………….” or, “I want to be best friends with you so much I’m going to kidnap you and keep you in my room forever. Lol,” or……ok you know what? There really is no subtle way to announce your Friend Crush on someone. None. Just suck it up and do it.
That is, of course, why Friend Crushes have the highest probability of becoming an Actual Friendship when one or both parties are drunk. Do with that fact what you will, love it or hate it, but the truth is that there is absolutely no quicker or easier way to become best friends with someone than, “OH MY GOD HI YOU’RE SO PRETTY ARE WE BEST FRIENDS YET CAN WE BE BEST FRIENDS OMG LET’S HAVE A HEART TO HEART NO BUT ACTUALLY LET’S BE BEST FRIENDS.”
So ladies and gentlemen, those are the rules of the Friend Crush. Do with them what you will, and for the record, you can ALWAYS tell me how much you love me and want to be best friends with me *sits and waits for inbox to flood*.
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