Infatuation crushes hearts
By DeDra Janssen
Staff Reporter
icky Kovar’s heart was broken.
At the innocent age of 6, Kovar, now a senior English major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, first
felt the seething pain of heartbreak when the boy she had a crush on lent his heart to another.
But it’s hard for a six-ycar-old mortal to
compete with a mermaid.
Kovar’s heart was broken by Marine Boy,
a cartoon character who she said looked like a
Japanese "Speed Racer.^
“1 w as really jealous when he started
dating a mermaid,” Kovar said. “They rode
ofTon their sea horses together.”
According to Gary Gollner, a psychiatric
social worker at the University Health Center,
crushes arc a normal and necessary part of
grow ing up, and so then, arc broken hearts.
That is why they arc called crushes.
But Gollner warned that crushes aren’t
meant to be taken seriously.
“Have a crush,” Gollner said. “Have a
crush on whomever you want. It’s a wonder
fully addictive feeling.”
Gollner said people needed to experience
crushes before they could get their feet on
the ground.
I would never discourage the feeling,
but don’t make more of it than it is, and if
you do, have the courtesy to tell the other
person what’s on your mind,” he said.
Gollner said three elements must be
present for a person to develop a crush.
Loneliness is the first element, he said.
“It’s the kind of loneliness you feel when
you’re in a room full of people who should
care, but don’t,” Gollner said. “There’s a
physical sense that goes along with feeling
lonely in the presence of people.”
Sexual attraction is the second element.
“That’s ‘sexual’ with a little ‘s,’ not a big
‘s,’” Gollner said. “It’s a false physiological
response in the presence of someone else.”
This element is often referred to as
‘chemistry,’ he said.
Gollner said the third element is the
“kicker.” It occurs when the object of one’s
affections is forbidden.
Extramarital affairs are classic examples, ,
he said. If the forbidden element in the
relationship is taken away, the infatuated
couple usually falls out of love, Gollner said.
“Romantic love is associated with a
crush. All this stuff is illusionary — it’s
smoke and mirrors.”
Gollner said crushes could become
dangerous when people didn’t recognize
them as illusionary love.
“If we get caught up in our illusions
we are setting ourselves up for no end of
tragedy,” he said.
The trouble begins when the person
who has a crush presumes that the
object of his or her affection must
return the feeling.
“Don’t presume on the basis
of your love that you are
entitled to reciprocation,”
Gollner said. “At the very least
you’ll get rejected good and
hard.”
Junior Lisa Hayford knows
just how hard it can be.
As a freshman, Hayford let a crush alter
her schedule and her state of mind.
A communications studies major from
Omaha, Hayford had a crush on someone
who lived in her residence hall. She knew
exactly when he ate dinner, and adjusted her
eating habits accordingly.
“I would freak out if my friends weren’t
ready for dinner at the time he ate,” Hayford
said. “1 would pout all night because we
missed him.”
Hayford said she went to great lengths to
make sure she didn’t miss him at dinner.
"All this stuff is
illusionary - it’s smoke
and mirrors. ”
If he wasn t there by the time I was
done eating, I would make my friends sit
there and wait for like an hour,” she said.
Though he flirted with her sometimes.
Hayford said she knew he would never ask
her out. That knowledge often would affect
Hayford’s mood.
“I’d get depressed if he didn’t talk to me
that day,” she said. “Then the next day he’d
talk to me, and 1 was immediately happy
again. I’d say ‘Someday I know he’ll want
me.’”
But Hayford’s crush never returned her
affection, and when he dropped out of school
at the end of the semester, her obsession
dwindled.
Hayford said she learned a valuable
lesson.
“I learned that if you like someone, let
them know,” she said. “It’s better to let them
know how you feel and find out if they like
you or not instead of having these hopes
about something that was never there.”
Despite the problems that can arise when
people take crushes too seriously, Gollner
said, most people don’t develop the kind of
crushes that are portrayed in movies like
“Fatal Attraction.”
“These people are suffering from severe
personality disorders,” Gollner said. “They
are needy and dissatisfied. They’re like
poker players who are always upping the
ante, raising the stakes.”
Fortunately for Hayford and Kovar, their
crushes never escalated to that point.
When Kovar was seven, she developed a
crush on a real person and tossed Marine
Boy to the wayside.
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she did have a crush that got out of
hand.
“I had a crush on a guy,” Kovar said.
“We were in a play together, and I
thought he had a crush on me too.
But when the play was over, he kind
of shook my hand and said, ‘Nice
working with ya.’
“It was terrible,” she said. “I was
devastated.”
Kovar said she still called him
afterward, and she even wrote him a
letter, but a friend convinced her not to
send it.
Gollner said having crushes like
Hayford’s and Kovar’s are essential for
people to learn how to look at their
feelings objectively.
“I think people have to go through it
a time or two in order to take a look at
reality” he said. “We tend to learn by
pain and mistakes. If you want to have
a healthy relationship, have a few
relationships that blow up in your face,
and learn from them. If you’re lucky,
you’ll still have a face after the explo
sion.”
Illustration by James Mehsling
