If love is painful, then that must be the reason why crushes exist.
Are you falling for anyone lately? Legitimately that is, because falling for K-Pop stars or swimsuit models are a completely different story.
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I'm talking about those warm fuzzy feelings that everyone's been talking about ever since elementary school. It's the nervous elation you feel every time that nameless person walks past you and gives you butterflies in your stomach. Of course, I'm talking about the infatuation stage to any prospective relationship: having a crush.
It's unavoidable and it hits you when you least expect it -- kinda like the latest Kendrick Lamar album. Though, sometimes you don't even realize if you're caught under anyone's spell. With that said, here are the five stages of the typical crush:
1. Denial
"Oh my, it's a pretty person." They look cute and they seem nice, but you don't even know who they are and they don't know you. So, you go on with the rest of your day and maybe get a coffee from Starbucks.
But then, the hypotheticals start coming into your head.
"Maybe I should've tried to talk to him/her? ...Nah."
Then, you go through the rest of your day...
Or, so you think....
(And so, the "chase" begins. Pray that your heart and brain can keep an even pace.)
2. Bargaining
This stage is like the brief period of time of minor coughing and sniffling where you say to yourself, "Oh geez, I hope I don't catch a cold," right before you go to bed and wake up with a stuffy nose and tired eyes. Only, now, you're telling yourself, "Oh geez, I hope I don't catch feelings," right before you start blasting "You Make My Dreams Come True" by Simon & Garfunkel through your headphones.
3. Delusion
Okay. Remember when I said that Simon & Garfunkel would be pumping in and out of your ears in the last stage? Now, this is the part where you're daydreaming about you and your crush and how wonderful everything would be if the two of you were together, riding some two-person bicycle along the French Riviera smiling and laughing. Animated birds are chirping, you're dancing in the street like your name is Fred Astaire or Shirley Temple and music is playing through your head without your headphones this time.
Then, you wake up from your mental mirage and blush, half-embarrassed.
4. Agony
This is the "trial by fire" stage of your infatuation. It's painful and comes almost immediately after every daydream with your crush.
(This is when your brain looks back to see your heart panting and struggling to keep up now.)
It's painful because you come to realize that you're going to have to decide on one of two paths on where you're going to take this heart boner: either you let you let your feelings run their course or you eventually work up the courage to ask your crush on a date.
(By the way, heart boner is an actual non-sexual term. Here's proof.)
5. Acceptance
Congratulations! You've reached the end of your emotional journey. This is the final stage of your romantic fascination with the person you like. If you're here, then you've either calmed down and can distract yourself long enough to occupy your mind with something other than fantasies of cuddle sessions, or you've gone ahead and asked your crush out (kinda like the end of crappy summer romance flicks from the '90s or the '80s.)
If you fell in the latter group of individuals for this last stage, then your journey's end is decided between two fates and between those two fates. Another congratulations to the individuals whose crushes said 'yes' to the first date. As for those who fell victim to the other fate...
There's alway someone coming around the other corner.
