I see crushes as pleasurable attractions and flirtations that aren’t going to go anywhere for one reason or another, and I enjoy them for what they are. Say I meet someone I’m attracted to. Either they return my interest and we begin dating, or they don’t and it’s a crush.
That said, my current life partner is someone I once had a crush on: at first he seemed unresponsive to my attentions, and I eventually wrote him off as uninterested/gay/taken. Years later he asked me out, and I learned that he wasn’t uninterested, just kind of shy and not sure he’s reading women right unless they hit him over the head.
