What it Feels Like to Have a Crush in Your Early 20’s

I’ll be upfront – I am crushing on a guy so hard right now. I matched with him on a dating app a few months ago, unexpectedly. I was bored one night and decided to take a whirl on the app. I have a habit of mostly swiping left on people, even if I find them attractive, and I almost swiped left on him. But before I did, I took one close look and noticed that he was actually very cute. Handsome even. And, he looked good in every picture that followed the first. I was shocked because 1) a distinctive and attractive looking guy seems really hard to come by nowadays, and 2) for a guy to look good in all his pictures is oddly rare for some reason. There’s always that one photo where you’re like “Eughhhh, better not.”

Right now, for me, having a crush in the later stage of my early twenties feels very humbling. I feel girlish. I haven’t had a crush or developed new feelings for someone since I was 18, and because it feels unfamiliar and like I’m starting all over again I’m not sure that I know what to do with myself. It’s driving me a little bit crazy because the more things begin to unravel the more I feel myself falling into the cycle and further developing the crush. The feeling starts to sink in, and I begin to remember how incontrollable this stage is. You get past a point where you can’t reel it in anymore. In the morning, you wake up anticipating a text message from him, and when he responds your mood instantly shifts. I hate to admit it, but if he doesn’t respond then my world feels like it’s crumbling around me and I’d rather be rotting alone in my bed in the dark waiting until he does. It becomes a reward system; immediate gratification when a notification with his name shows up on my lock screen in bright white letters. And to make matters worse, I visit his Instagram page multiple times a day just to check on him, but really what I’m doing is reminding myself of how incredibly hot he is. And yes, I feel silly about it.

I thought the more my prefrontal lobe cortex developed, the better I’d be at handling these types of situations. Or that, the last time that I’d been in a situation like this (which was my freshman year of college) I’d ended up being burned so bad from it that I didn’t think I would recover. To be honest, I was so hurt after my last break up that I never thought I could be so attracted or involved with another person. Yet, here I am almost a year later feeling very child-like, bright-eyed, and optimistic about what love has to offer. While I’m curious about this exciting feeling, there’s naturally a part of my body and mind that has an aversion to it. It’s almost like having a fight or flight instinct kick-in when you feel yourself being mushy and vulnerable all over again.

To me, the thing that sucks about having a crush on someone (even if you know they like you back) is the fear of the unknown. You enter a territory of emotional highs and lows. Especially because of the access we have to social media and multiple dating apps, no matter how secure I am in myself I’ll always wonder “is he talking to other girls?” or “how do I know that he really likes me?”.

There are also times when you’re absolutely delusional about the person and romanticizing every bit of them. I feel like girls are more open about this part of having a crush. That, we think about how their last name sounds with our first name or even go as far coming up with names for a dog well probably never adopt. And, being in a prolonged talking stage exacerbates the delusion. That’s why meeting up in person is so important to me because it helps bring me back down to reality to help me assess how I really feel about the person rather than just going off a “feeling” that I manipulated over and over in my head.

So yeah, I feel excited. The kind of excitement where you want to dance and wave your arms around in a field full of lilies and pretty pink flowers, but I’m also dealing with a sense of romantic impostor syndrome. I’m not sure if it’s a normal thing to experience in your twenties, but sometimes I feel as if I’m undeserving of romance and love or that I should be out clubbing my early 20s away every chance I get (even though I know I’d rather be cuddled up in bed with him). It’s all just very overwhelming right now, but I can assure myself that I’m not the only 23 year old girl feeling this way. I think the only thing I can do right now as I navigate crushes (and dating) in my twenties is continue to establish and practice boundaries with myself and others, while also holding space for myself as feelings and emotions present themselves.