Crush as Concept

andy pink, live from 249 1F in east cambridge, massachusetts — i can't believe the baseball season ended without a chance to hook up with Jarren Duran! —

i realized on looking over my recent textual production that i have been quite prolific lately. i told the gay boys at the park, and they were encouraging, suggesting that i take my graphomania to the next stage, and just continue to write all day; i can't do that, as various keys on my keyboard have busted, been made slightly dysfunctional, making it difficult to touch type without aggravation, but pressing on —

i thought a lot about the concept of the "crush" last night as i was working on the gay manuscript, all of the discussion by deleuze on masochism, it is true that the crush is a modality of sexuality and desire and even gender, and i think it is maligned or dismissed in the culture, which is annoying, to say the least about the repressive quality of this displacement. if you tell someone you have fallen in love with another person, they'll often respond that "you've fallen in love with the idea of love" (this one is the worst, and most immature, unworldy), then there's "it's a crush," as a response. the idea of love is probably accurate in a lot of cases, but that is surely true whether there is an object of love or not. everyone is always in love with the idea of love, that should hopefully be the situation of humanity, and absolutely for the troubodor and the homosexual. but the masochistic dimension raises the crush to new heights, and the crush becomes the object of love, mostly because he represents love, the pursuit, the satisfaction, the disappointment, the erotic, and the impossible. Everybody is in love with love, and the crush is likely the most intense form of desire imaginable. in fact, if relationships sustained the crush (love) affect they would be significantly more torrid (and interesting) than they usually end up being. my point: the crush is the apex of sexuality and desire, and the longer it can be sustained (protracted, extended) the better the relationship is in its intensity.

at emerson, i asked the students about the crush, i raised the issue as: "why is the crush so excruciatingly pleasurable" — to which they all laughed — and then in poured the stories and anecdotes of high school crushes. it took the rest of the class, as not only did all students have tales of intense crushes, but they all seemed suddenly enthralled by the opportunity to share those experiences. many of the crushes lasted for several years, some endured troubles with schoolwork because the crushes were so passionate and intense, and almost, sadly, all of these crushes — libidinal energies that were almost unextiinguishable — were destined to defeat. but all of the students recalled their stories with such intensity and glee — smiles and laughter rather than heartache and pain — that it was a perfectly wonderful sounding board in group to share these anecdotes.

in my experience, the crush is immediate, it's a kind of love at first sight, and though the object of the crush would appear to be the boy, i think it is in fact much more the atmosphere or ether or context which matters, or is determinative. my transferential pattern to the barista certainly has more to do with the coffee, cream, and coffee shop than it does with the empirical features of the boy. as lacan makes clear, fantasy is a mise-en-scene (setting, framework, space), and it instructs or educates desire in the object and aim of the desire, so for me, in my experience, the coffee shop atmosphere has been crucial to my developing the crush on the boy. i think most people do not think about the mise-en-scene, and are therefore missing the dimension of fantasy in understanding their own desire, but for me the coffee shop is crucial to stimulating the desire (patrick, mike, mason, rich, and others). i need the scene. i fall in love with space. the boy is secondary.

one question that arises is whether the crush (love at first sight) can actually transcend the borders of the context. what happens when the scene moves to the street or the couch? in my experience, that is a bumpy transition, as the context and reference of the object of desire recede, and i am left with the brute body of the boy. this is why the date is key, and making it a space of fantasy even if it is not the coffee shop. as for the transition from crush (love at first sight) to love, i think that's probably pretty easy (at least for me), as i am so visual and aural that the boy who meets the standards of my gaze will be a love-object for sure. the crush is the way in, of course, and it is unintentional and accidental, the elements (atmosphere) just come together, inspiring the crush (love at first sight). maintaining the intensity and the passion of the crush is really a job, and it requires injecting real passion and secrecy into the nascent relationship. this popped up:

i'd like to lick his forehead, caress his hair, make out, forever, holding his tongue in my mouth, waiting for me to swallow him, i work over to the tips of the boy's ear, i nip at the tips, i feel him, present, he is sweaty and scared, and i move slowly, enjoying his adam's apple, his neck, asking him to pull his shirt off, i continue, i work down to the nipples, with the piercings, and i work my tongue around those, i feel death, i see him die, he collapses to the floor, the tips of the ears hear me, they see me, i taste, then return to the nippes, the piercings, he is tiny, i will crush him with my dick, at the right time, i hear the bolts, it's boy, i rip the tips of his ears off, i plan to bite his penis off, i'll take it with me, i'll share it with the other boys, this boy will be gone, his cock, beautiful, it throbs, i see the thunder, the penis, it's mine, i take it in my mouth, i focus on the head, the pineal eye, i slip into it, i ask to be take in by him, to crawl in, find his ass, nether around, crawl up his hole, disappeared. the crush is over.

it only takes a minute, girl (listen to some pop music),

xoxo andy p

crush, love, or jealousy?