by Marilyn Justine

Created on: September 05, 2008

Like most teenage girls, I remember falling madly in love every other week-with a different guy. When you get older, however, you realize that you weren't really 'in love' like you though, you just had crushes on these boys. You cannot possibly know what love is really about when you are thirteen years old and the only person of the opposite gender you've ever been close to is the guy who sits next to you in biology class.

We all have crushes on boys we know, teachers, movie stars, guys in bands and just about every male we see (obtainable or not). It's all part of growing up and (for the most part) it's all innocent. We dream about these boys holding our hand, going on picnics with us and kissing us, but we don't think about the emotional involvement that is required for a true, meaningful, lasting relationship. That is what makes it a crush and that is why we can get over it.

At the time our crush -which seems like true love-is all that we think about, and we build ourselves a little cocoon in which we feel safe and secure. This usually works best for guys we don't know: the older guy (usually in his 20s) who is successful (a singer or actor perhaps) and therefore unattainable to us, a teenage kid stuck in high school. The problems start for us when he presents his girlfriend or wife to the world and we find our dreams shattered around our feet. We cry a lot because now we can never be together and we had built all our hopes and future plans on this love'.

As a teenager in 'love' we think we will actually met this person and live happily ever after and when we find that he has a full grown woman by his side (and maybe even a few kids), these dreams are shattered. I remember being like this myself. I was crazy about a guy in a band. I was going to move halfway across the world, marry him and live happily ever after. I never planned that, while I was getting ready to graduate, he would find the love of his life in a daytime soap actress and marry her. They now have two kids and a very happy marriage. I am still alone. I got over him of course, but it took a while.

I realize now that what he seemed and what he is are probably not the same thing. I liked the fact he was shy, talented and extremely handsome. However, you cannot build a life on that but I had a few years of harmless fun imagining that it could because it was a crush, and I got over it. This pattern would repeat itself several times in my life, but never quite as strongly as a teenage girl with her first big crush.

So in conclusion there are two things that will help you get over a crush and you will realize in the end that it was just a crush and that you were never meant to be together and get on with your life: they are time and maturity.

Learn more about this author, Marilyn Justine.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.