The Interesting Case of the Crush-less
There is a curious zero in my memories. Where most reminisce about blushing encounters and stolen glances, my past stretches out with no events of this kind, devoid of the fluttering heart and nervous energy that supposedly defines a crush.
So my question in this post is: Did I miss out on something? Is there a key human experience I’ve somehow bypassed?
This lack of a quite common youthful experience has made me think about my journey. Could it be my personality? Is my mind a fortress of logic, built with the solid bricks of Stoicism?
Cicero said that, for a wise person to engage in a romantic relationship, they must be sure to be totally free of negative, bounding emotions, stating:
Qui si quis est in rerum natura sine sollicitudine, sine desiderio, sine cura, sine suspirio, sit sane.
Marcus Tullius Cicero,Tusculanae Disputationes, Liber IV, XXXIV
Or, am I so good at following the life-changing teachings of Buddhist detachment? Perhaps. Buddhists’ teachings do not stop practitioners, and priests, from having emotions. They teach us how to stop being CONTROLLED by these negative emotions. From a Buddhist point of view, a crush is not real love, the kind of love that lasts and is not obsessive, not bounding, and not enslaving.
