I’ve had celebrity crushes before I knew the name for it. I don’t categorize my childhood crushes by the boys from my elementary school. I think of Luke Hemmings from the band, 5 Seconds of Summer, Prince Char from Ella Enchanted, or Finnick from The Hunger Games. I’m sure there’s some deeper psychological reason why I’ve always opted for the fictional. But, in my simple self-diagnosis: I’m just the absolute best at being an avoidant.Â
I’ve had crushes on real people, too, of course, but I’ve never gotten to truly know someone and then continued to like them. It usually consists of me finding someone attractive, dreaming up the type of person they are, and then falling in love with the idea I created. I’m really, really talented at doing this but since I’ve recently found a lack of desire toward real life people, I resort to celebrities and fictional characters.
Recently, I rewatched my pre-teen self’s favorite movie: If I Stay. It was released when I was ten years old and I still think it’s a great movie despite its definite frying of my synapses and configuring them into the way they work now. Every trope in the movie perfectly represents the classic tropes of 2014 romance and fanfiction.Â
Mia, the protagonist, is a teenage cellist who got in a car accident with her family and they’re getting admitted to the hospital for immediate care. The story flashes back and forth in time to the hospital and the journey of Mia’s relationship with Adam. Adam is an aspiring rockstar who wears leather jackets and smokes cigarettes. Despite his quiet, cool-boy demeanor — he’s entranced by Mia. As soon as Adam notices Mia practicing her cello in the school’s orchestra room he tells her she can’t hide anymore because he sees her.
When I rewatched the movie and heard that line — everything clicked. Here’s one of the clearest examples in media I’ve revisited of the blatant selling of the idea that somehow some dude will understand me better than anyone and save me from the possibility of being alone forever.Â
Mia and Adam have a perfect, whirlwind romance: the rising rockstar and the quiet cellist. Eventually, it’s revealed Mia and Adam broke up a few months before the crash. Despite not being together, as soon as Adam hears about Mia’s crash, he runs to the hospital all the way up to the ICU door where Mia is intubated. Naturally, my preteen-self watched that and thought: so how do I get into a car accident?
My imagination first tried to picture: What boy from school would run to my hospital room? But even my naive-self (busy dreaming about getting hurt for attention) knew no boy from school would do that. So instead, I imagined the more accessible alternative: my celebrity crushes. Luke Hemmings, running to my rescue, because obviously his 19-year-old self would run to my 11-year-old self’s side.Â
I’m only talking about myself in middle school because it’s embarrassing to elaborate on how this permeates who I am now. However, despite my insistence this day would never come: my celebrity crushes have faded into a general attraction rather than a soul-crushing emotional investment.Â
I think the real problem is how these endless crushes growing up made me more comfortable with yearning for people I don’t know. I like when someone isn’t aware of my existence because there’s no situation where rejection could occur. It allows me to place all my ideas of my perfect person on blank canvases.Â
I know I’ve fallen in love with the idea of romance and love, rather than the real version of it. Which is something I’ve contemplated and written about in length before. However, I know my lifelong celebrity crushes worsened this condition of mine. I can question myself about why I always want an object of desire, but the answer is simple: we live in a male-centered society that conditioned me to believe I need a man. So, women created the idea that these relationships could include a deeper connection (romance). Maybe romance is just fiction and that’s why celebrity or fictional crushes have been the most sustainable way for me to express my desire.