There Are Many Kinds of Crushes

FRIEND CRUSH--we're pals. Oh boy, but we're pals. We pal around and take in movies and maybe grab lunch. We talk on the phone and we send funny emails and sometimes when I'm laughing alone (sock puppets in the mirror) or with others (making up breakfast cereals), I think to myself, "Oh boy, my pal would laugh at this too."

For a while, at first, I thought we might be dating. Boyfriends were not spoken of, but then neither were dates between ourselves. Every time we hung out I thought, "This time I will kiss her, or I'll know we're just pals." And each time I would not kiss her, but there was always an alternate explanation.

My friends might say, "She likes you. She definitely likes you, why would she write/call/drop in if she didn't like you?" But I just couldn't tell.

Or, I knew she liked me, and our hands might brush while we walked, or our shoulders would meet and our arms would press together during a movie, but afterwards there was no reference of either. It turned out she did have a boyfriend. Maybe she wanted to break up with him, or maybe she didn't but she still wasn't happy, but either way what happened afterwards between us, between pals, was not discussed.

"Maybe she's gay," friends might say.

And I start to say, no, she's not gay, but I wind up saying, "Well, she is kind of tough. She pins me when we wrestle."

"Yeah, but you're skinny," they tell me.

A lot of things are left unsaid. This is a confusing kind of crush.