The Joy of the Crush

August 26, 2009 -

When you get to be a certain age, there are expectations imposed upon you by society that if not adhered to can change the way you are perceived by others. Women like me – 30-something, career-driven, financially independent and otherwise emotionally stable women - are not expected to develop secret celebrity crushes on “unattainable” men. That sort of behavior is generally reserved for tweens & teens, maybe the occasional late-blooming college co-ed. But once you are of legal drinking age, it is fully anticipated that you would have moved on from such frivolous endeavors. And if you dare go down that path, you run the risk of being labeled “Obsessed”, “Immature”, “Unstable” or the shame of all shames - “Stalker”.

All over the world – or at least all over the world wide web - there are thousands of women just like myself who have developed Secret Celebrity Crushes, or SCCs. The objects of their affection are many - rock stars, actors, athletes, models, artists, authors, politicians, motivational speakers, TV chefs, televangelists…anyone of the opposite sex, or indeed the same sex…who is a person of note the admirer feels drawn to.

My "crushee" is an actor – a Villain-cum-Alien. If you know anything about me, this is interesting as I don’t watch TV nor am I much of a movie buff. My previous admirations were generally reserved for musicians and athletes. I have not seen the TV show my SCC currently acts in, other than fast-forwarding through a couple episodes on Hulu, nor have I seen any of his previous endeavors. He first came to my attention when I took myself to see the requisite summer blockbuster that everyone was raving about in which he starred as part of an ensemble cast. Even after seeing the film, I didn’t really give him much notice until someone asked me what I thought about the movie. In doing so she mentioned that she spilled her soda on her husband as soon as the leading man came on the screen. The leading man is not my type at all, but I did say that I thought his co-star was interesting. That prompted me to go out and figure out who that actor was. Click after click, I finally found my way to his official website and was reading some of the articles. It was an article he did in Playboy that really grabbed my attention. Something about the no-nonsense tone and the references to Carl Jung really got to me. I realized then that I had stumbled across an exceptional person, both in talent and intelligence. And not bad to look at either. I’m a sucker for brown eyes!

I was hooked. And slightly embarrassed! Why at my age am I developing a SCC on someone that a) I didn’t know even existed a week earlier; and b) would likely never know that I existed. It was highly illogical, to borrow a quote from my SCCs character.But I soon realized that I was not alone in this world. Within a couple weeks, his official website added an Online Community. As I quickly signed up to join the community as member #471 (thereabouts), I thought how cool it would be to connect with some of these women and get a feel for who they were, and in the process maybe learn more about myself. All of a sudden, I was part of a group of like-minded women – and the occasional man – who were experiencing similar feelings to my own.

Certainly, if they saw the same thing in this person as I did then we would surely have much in common!

Right?

Not quite.

Admittingly, since joining my SCCs Community I have been an active participant, replying to posts, joining in on informal polls, rallying in the effort to promote our mutual SCC. After all, we are all here for a common cause.

Maybe.

Whereas my interest lies more in the "cerebral endowments" of my SCC, clearly many women are more attracted to his lithe, muscular body particularly in the torso region. Tummy Porn, they call it when posting the numerous photographs and screen captures they seek out from the Internet and photoshop to their liking.

OK – so I admit, I did notice his tight abs, strong shoulders, his aforementioned warm brown eyes, like pools of luscious dark chocolate, and seemingly lack of male pattern baldness.

I didn't really sign up for Tummy Porn.

Yet even though the motivation behind some others’ interest differs slightly from my own, I still appreciate these women. I don’t always understand all of them, all the time and question some of what is considered to be humorous. I still feel a commaderie, knowing that at 30-something, I am not alone in the world. That I should not be afraid to allow myself to feel an attraction towards another human being, regardless of how distant or how many degrees of separation exist between him and I (one, by the way. So close - yet so far!).

Carl Jung once wrote:

"Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.”

Rather than being unstable or obsessed, I believe now that it is a healthy outlet for people – women and men – to indulge in the occasional fantasy now and again. If that happens to involve someone of note - a celebrity - so be it. This is part of what makes life interesting and keeps us engaged with each other. I’m glad in the knowledge that I really am not alone in this world, and am far from being "obsessed".