Crushes versus true emotional compatibility

Whenever I have been hit by a crush, it has always been quite a big thing.
I have had 2 humongous crushes and one slightly smaller one in my life, all on guys who did not apparently share my faith.

This is what happened regarding each of the crushes
1 (Humongous crush)
This was at uni. I stared at him endlessly. We had one weird conversation instigated by myself where I tried to apologise to him and very regrettably lied. I was not able to be friendly to him and in that I did not show to him the kindness which I aspire to show everyone, which I also regret. However, I am beyond ecstatic that ultimately nothing happened between us beyond that.

2. Slightly Lesser crush:
I told him that I had a crush on him, and I also danced very suggestively at him at a nightclub for work thing, before then literally catching myself, running out of the door and catching a bus home. I then had to make such an excruciating apology. I sent him long personal messages on Facebook, nothing else happened between us except that, he married someone else, the end.

3. Humongous crush:
Thankfully there was no weird dancing this time. Unlike with Humongous crush 1, though, I could actually speak to this man! However, just like with the first humongous crush I just could not release myself to be friendly towards this guy. Because of that there was no real friendliness between us.  Ultimately I did eventually tell him, I sent him a letter admitting my feelings, I wrote many blog posts, now deleted, right here on this blog. But he did not respond and that was that!

So that is the history of my interaction with guys that have been directed by strong “feelings”. I have also interacted with other guys for the sake of investigating romantic possibilities. However, those were Christian guys, and those interactions were not driven by feelings.

So with these three crushes, even though nothing actually happened with any of these men, other than weird dancing and long letters and blog posts, I still clung on so tightly to the romantic hope offered by these crushes. I honestly did not understand myself at the time, but over time I believe that I have come to understand what exactly was going on.

Loneliness: I was always quite lonely as a child. I am quite an intense person, and I have always craved deep emotional connection with someone.  I even sometimes suspect that I may have lost a twin in the womb. So throughout my entire life, I have been searching for a soulmate, even without realising it.
And then when each crush hit, at intervals of approximately 8 years, each one hit big. And at the time, each seemed to offer that deep emotional connection that I have craved literally my entire life. So asking me to let go of these crushes was like asking me to let go entirely of the hope of that longed-for emotional connection. So I psychologically clung on as if for dear life!

In each of these cases, I eventually, reluctantly let go of the crush, only because each man in question was not a Christian. Similarly, with the Christian guys I interacted with romantically, I did not really take those as seriously as I could have done, because of the lack of those deep feelings. I still gave my thousand per cent to the Christians though, in a way I was not able to do with the crushes, as I was just too busy running away from my crushes. Regarding Crush 1, I actually physically ran away from him! Honestly I am so weird, in that most people are ultra-nice to their crushes. I am the only person I know who has been so unfriendly to my crushes, to the point of rudeness, but that was an expression of fear on my part.

Why don’t Christians tell you this?!
To be fair, even if someone had told me the following, I probably would not have listened. But at least I would have had the option to actually make a choice!
I told so many people about the first crush, Christians as well as non-Christians. The only person I did not discuss it with was the man himself! And so many Christians told me: “Oh Tosin, you have to let go of it, he is not a Christian!”  Which is true. However, the understanding that has really helped me now is this: understanding that that supposed “emotional connection” that I was clinging to was completely false.  For each crush, I assumed that it was a genuine, almost cosmic connection between me and the guy, that there was something “real” there that they would have felt as keenly as I did.  What I understand now, what frankly should have been obvious, would probably have been obvious except to someone who was as lonely as I was, is that it all happened completely within myself. It was more an indication of my own loneliness.  It was not, could not possibly be an expression of any kind of compatibility with the other person, it was not, could not possibly be a ratification of their character – not that I knew to look out for that, then.  Crushes are not useless altogether, because they indicate to me the depth of my own feeling, and tell me what I should be looking for in a relationship. So knowing the kind of deep feeling that can fill me, I know I need to look for a relationship that can provide that deep feeling, otherwise it will not feel real.
Crushes also indicate to me the romantic urgency that exists within my own heart, like a strong hint that I have to deal with this. I have always felt a certain reassurance whenever a crush has hit, because it confirms that my heart is still working, and I still have what it takes to be crazy about someone!

OK, when you stare at someone as much as I stared at eg Crush 1, then in a way that does create a kind of “connection”, at least in that he knows who you are!  But that does not then create or automatically generate true compatibility, does it, for instance in terms of lifeplans?! I am tempted to feel somewhat stupid while writing this, because from my current perspective this all seems So. Obvious. However, if deep down you assume that a crush is an expression of something “cosmic” or meant to be, then you assume that all those details will just work themselves out, because, well, it is just meant to be!  And then I remember that this is the way many people go about forming relationships, based on deep feelings, and it makes me feel so much better to realise that as human beings many of us have a tendency to make this mistake, to give undue weight to our “feelings”. Now if a strong sense of attraction was used as a primary indication to explore a romantic possibility, to assess for character and compatibility, then that is different. But to base a whole entire relationship on the feelings themselves?  Now I realise how dangerous that would have been. Now I am so glad that none of these three crushes happened to involve Christians guys. Because there would have been nothing to hinder me, so I would just have happily thrown myself into my feelings, and gone ahead to marry the first crush who happened to share my faith, only to likely realise that the underlying structures of character and compatibility were missing (as they appear to be missing for most Christians I have come across). Now God is God and God is gracious and God is beautiful, so He would likely still have brought forth something beautiful from such a mistake. However, how much better to avoid making that mistake altogether!

This is what I now believe is a vastly superior alternative to jumping headfirst into a crush.  The truth is that a crush is not “real”. It is not an indication of a cosmic reality, or something invisible but “real” connecting you to your crush. No. It is not even an indication of mutual feelings on the part of the other person, which is why “unrequited love” is a thing.
What is real is this:  learning the lessons about what a crush teaches you about yourself, and looking for someone who also wants that.

Not real?
There are so many guys I have previously turned down, because I did not have profound crush-like “feelings” for them.  So if such a guy came out and asked me out, I would say no, because I just did not feel that way about them. Now though, breathtakingly, I realise that emotional connection is something that can be and should be worked out between two people, if there is actual emotional compatibility between them. So it is not as if emotional connection is something that strikes you from the air like a lightning bolt, the way a crush works. What I need to do first is look for someone who wants the same things emotionally as I do. I need to look for someone who:
– Also yearns for deep emotional connection in marriage
– Also wants to pour out their heart in deep emotional, or intimate exchanges
– Is dreaming of holding hands, enjoying sunsets, tender hugs, sweet nothings etc etc
– Etc etc – eg what I have previously written on this blog

If someone is not dreaming of that, perhaps they are dreaming of a far more prosaic, or practical partnership in marriage, then that indicates that there is no true emotional compatibility between me and him, and I know not to go near him romantically.
And you know what?  I might not find someone with whom I have perfect emotional compatibility, perhaps I have to define what I would find enough.

I believe that now I understand that if the emotional compatibility is there, then between the two of us we can work to establish a true emotional connection, doing the things which make us feel emotionally connected to one another.

Enter character:
This is what makes the concept of emotional compatibility way more reliable than a crush:  if you base it all on solid character. So you first evaluate people for outstanding character, and then you then evaluate further for true compatibility, emotional compatibility and other compatibility.

Tradeoffs:
The reality of relationships is that as human beings we do not of course have all the time in the world to sift out “perfect” romantic matches, our lives are finite and even within that our biological clocks impose constraints on what we need to achieve by when. So many people of course make tradeoffs. Perhaps you marry someone with whom you do not have great emotional compatibility, but who has earthshattering character.  Or perhaps you marry someone whose lifegoals are significantly different from yours, but you know what, after surveying who else is available, you decide to yourself that it’s fine, you’ll make it work!  I personally think that the one area you simply cannot afford to accept a tradeoff is in terms of character and pursuit of Christ. And frankly for me emotional compatibility represents the whole reason why I want to get married in the first place, why it is such a deep and insistent yearning. So I am not going to accept a tradeoff regarding that either!
So for my particular marriage, there needs to be deep, sustained pursuit of Christ, far beyond the “standards” that we typically observe in church.  In my particular marriage, there also needs to be deep emotional compatibility. Those two things are non-negotiable. Might I be able to accept tradeoffs in other areas?  Yes. Because I am so insistent about these two things, I realise I need to be as flexible as I can be in other areas.  Either way it will require a miracle though!!! If only I worshipped an all-powerful God who could perform incomprehensible miracles!!!

Need to feel crazy:
You know, after Crush 1, I made up my mind that I needed to be crazy about my eventual husband. I thought to myself that if I could be that crazy about a crush, then I needed to be even crazier about my actual eventual husband. Pragmatically speaking, I don’t want my eventual husband to take second place in my life romantically to some unrequited uni crush.
Now I realise that the way to be crazy about my husband, truly crazy, on an ongoing basis, is to choose a man of unfailing pursuit of character, so I can be genuinely excited on an ongoing basis about his integrity, his honesty, his trustworthiness, his kindness, his faithfulness, his compassion, his considerate nature. This is why I need to insist on phenomenal character. However, just understanding this and knowing what to hopefully and joyfully expect from a man who is sincerely and desperately running after Christ means that the mere hope of my future husband has already vastly surpassed the reality of any of my previous crushes.