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date: 2020-07-21
weight: 1
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I am, I often joke, a being built entirely of crushes and anxiety.

> You joke, but...

But is that so far from the truth? Is that wrong? It is an incomplete definition, perhaps but it is not incorrect. There is a set of negative emotions that I feel, and a lot of them are bundled up beneath the umbrella of anxiety. There are a lot of positive emotions that I feel, and when I feel them about people, they are bound up under the header of crush.

The squish zone, I call it.

> Crush, squish...how delightfully physical.

They are very physical feelings. They're a type of attraction that has a flavor, a taste. They're a type of attraction that comes over me with a pressure within my chest and a compulsive itch to move, to touch.

And it's not that they're not emotional. They are. They're very emotional. They're just of a more forceful breed.

> More forceful than what?

Than simple romance. Than the comfortable sort of love that comes with an established relationship.

They're not comfortable at all. They come upon me like a palsy. They ride me like madness.

> "Involuntary state of intense romantic desire" indeed.

Yes.