Dear Joely: An Inconvenient Crush
Dear Joely,
I am a woman in my late fifties and, until recently, believed myself to be beyond the age of behaving like a sixth-former with a biro and a pulse. Then I developed a crush.
It is not on a film star, which would at least be private and convenient. It is on a man I know in real life. He is charming, bright, entirely age-appropriate, and, maddeningly, just attentive enough to keep me flustered without doing anything so obvious that I can call the whole thing to heel.
Nothing has happened. He has not declared himself. I have not flung myself across a table. We are simply in that intolerable territory where eye contact begins to feel like an event and one finds oneself thinking far too hard about what to wear to somewhere that didn’t matter at all before he might be there.
Part of me feels thrilled to be capable of this sort of fizz at all. Another part feels faintly humiliated. I am too old, surely, to be mooning over a man like a girl in a ponytail. And yet I also resent the idea that desire should have an expiry date, as though one is meant to become a tasteful lampshade after a certain birthday.
So my question is this: should I enjoy the feeling for what it is and let it pass, or is there ever a dignified way to do something with a crush at my age?
Signed,
Unexpectedly Flustered
Dear Flustered,
First, let us bury the idea that desire is only attractive in the young. That is nonsense invented by people who prefer women to become decorative once they’ve learned a few things.
A crush in later life is not pathetic. It is inconvenient, certainly. Occasionally ridiculous. But also rather cheering. It reminds you that the shutters are not up, the blood still circulates, and your powers of anticipation have not been pensioned off to sit in a cardie by the fire.
The trouble with a crush is not the feeling itself. The trouble is what the feeling tempts you to do. It can turn an intelligent woman into an amateur codebreaker, forever analysing pauses, glances, and whether a man said “see you soon” with intent or merely manners.
So enjoy the quickening, by all means. Stand in front of the mirror a little longer. Feel your pulse misbehave. There are worse things. But do not build a cathedral out of crumbs. If he is interested, let him become clearer in ways that would be visible even to a woman who was not wearing your particular perfume and hoping for signs.
And if an opening genuinely presents itself, there is nothing undignified about warmth, wit, or a little well-judged boldness. The only thing I would avoid is tipping a whole bucket of fantasy over a situation that may yet amount to no more than pleasing chemistry and a decent jawline.
You are not too old for this. You are simply old enough to know the difference between delight and self-abandonment. Try to keep the first and avoid the second.
Yours, with eyebrows raised,
Joely