There’s always one person who you start falling for who you know you’re not meant to. It’s always someone really inappropriate like someone who’s already married with eight children or a straight girl who actually fancies your brother. Even worse, it could be your boss, who you can’t stop staring at during your lunch break and you wish you could just act out your fantasy of walking into her office and locking the door behind you. But usually you decide against it because losing your job or getting arrested wasn’t on your list of stuff to get done that day.
Having feelings for these people is forbidden and yet for some reason in our crazy lady brains, that makes them more attractive. Why don’t you have these lovely, available chocolates here that come in all shape, sizes and all with different fillings? Oh no thank you, I would like the ones over there that are not allowed to be eaten under any circumstances. I personally blame Eve and her stupid apple. She probably didn’t even like sodding apples. But as soon as she got told she couldn’t have it she was planning out an apple pie recipe.
Vita had just such a crush back when she was single. On her uni lecturer no less. She’d failed a few of her exams and she needed them in order to be considered for a business loan so she went back to London college in order to pass them. At first, as so often happens in inappropriate crushes, she hated her. She found her annoying and unpredictable and condescending, apparently. Oh, and she had annoyingly perfect hair that just looked all annoyingly shiny and tousled. And nice eyes.
When you fancy someone, the worst thing you can do is tell someone. Because that someone will end up telling someone else and it will soon get back to that person. You don’t want to be the girl whom everyone knows has a crush on an unavailable person. Of course, Vita told me, but I am her cousin, so her secret was safe. And I, of course, told Steph because she is our best friend. And we needed to see if Steph knew her. Or more importantly, had slept with her.
I think there are a few things you can do if you don’t want someone to know you like them. Not dressing up for them would be one. Don’t get up two hours earlier than you need to, to cover your body in bronzer and glitter. Don’t wear that top that makes your cleavage wave hello or that skirt that makes you do a wiggle walk. And don’t twirl your hair and lick said glitter off your lips when you’re talking to the person either.
Never get too close to the person. Because if miss hot lecturer was asking you to stay behind to do extra work, she was doing it as a caring teacher. Or if someone invites you out as a friend, she’s probably just being friendly or she’s feeling sorry for you because you had to go the dentist and now you’re dribbling as you talk to her.
When you like someone, you just can’t think of a valid reason why they don’t fancy you back. Like, how could they not want to dump their girlfriend/job/commitments and take off with you to Vegas to marry you under the watchful eye of an Elvis statue? Vita would look for signs that hot lecturer liked her back. A stare that lasted a little too long, the way she pronounced her name, the way she marked her papers with extra ticks and smiley face if they were correct. Just in case that was how she professed her love to strangers; by sending secret messages in scrawled red ticks.
The feeling does go away eventually. I’ve fancied plenty of people, and I mean really fancied them, like being one step away from a Dana shrine like what Alice makes on the LWord, but months later I’ve looked at them and thought ‘just how.’ How did I think the girl with the forehead the size of chopping board was in any way sexy? How did I not realize that the woman in the 80’s tracksuits wasn’t wearing them ironically? And how did I not think that the lady with the monobrow looked like a cross between a Frida Khalo and Herman Munster?
The sad thing is, by obsessing over that person, you might be stopping yourself meeting the actual person you’re meant to be with. The person you’re meant to be with for the rest of your life because you’re too blinded by the unavailability of your forbidden princess. But then on the other hand, that Lecturer was called Jennifer Flint, and after quitting her job to be with Vita, they’ve been together ever since.
So sometimes, maybe it’s worth breaking the rules.
Freya is a Londoner trying to find a life beyond the gay scene and failing at being a grownup on the regular.
