Girl Crushes

My first crush on a girl occurred in college. I developed a friendship with an intense tennis-playing blue-eyed beauty. She attended Wheaton, but we met volunteering Saturday mornings for a vacation-bible school-type program in a public housing project in Chicago. We ran in totally different friend circles. Hers was a pretty-peopled, sophisticated, seemingly ethereal group, and mine, well we were normal and unassuming. So, the few times she wanted to meet up, I felt honored that she would deign to turn her gaze my way. When we did meet, we had marathon talking sessions. Really, it was her doing most of the talking: about her already graduated boyfriend, about how people at Wheaton put on a show of religion but their actions told a different story, about her depression. She liked my authenticity and sincerity. She said she could really talk to me.

And me, well, I was mesmerized. 

I felt such a connection with her (yep, there’s that word). I would come away from these marathon sessions feeling depressed, thinking I was so empathetic taking on her emotions and being so concerned for her. In reality, I was super attracted to her and had no idea what to do with those feelings. I was not self-aware enough to know that what I was feeling was attraction and, in my Christian bubble, being gay was so off-limits that I did not even frame my feelings for her in terms of desire. It did not occur to me that I was crushing on her hard (I mean, c’mon, I had a boyfriend). I just knew that whatever connection we had was intense. Or, more accurately stated, whatever connection I felt toward her was intense.  

My second girl crush came the summer after my junior year in college on a study-abroad program. During that trip, I developed an interest in this cute co-ed. She was athletic, popular, fun, and beautiful with mounds of brown hair toppled messily in a topknot (I might still have a crush). We would go on runs together and talk about our faith. I admired her strong values and how she seemed confident in what she believed but vulnerable enough to voice the questions and doubts she had about God and the Bible. Our talks were never as intimate or intense as they had been with my first girl crush. I was not as enthralled. I just thought I wanted to be like her. This is true, I did want to be like her. I wanted to be as cute and fun as she was, but I also wanted her attention and affection.  

I was dating Matt during all this time, still thinking we would probably marry. He and I moved out to Colorado after graduation with three friends from Wheaton. None of us knew what we were doing after college except my roommate Mandy, who was headed to graduate school at CU. We all wanted to stay together so we moved to Boulder. And in a lot of ways it was an idyllic time, an extension of college. All five of us hanging out in our apartment, talking and cooking and doing whatever. Matt and I played in the mountains at least two days a week, snowboarding and mountain biking, while holding down customer service jobs.

He was my best friend, my buddy.  

After a year in Boulder, Matt and I moved to Lawrence, Kansas while I started a Master’s program in English Literature at the University of Kansas. He delivered auto parts, and I worked part-time as a waitress. We lived in the same apartment building. My apartment was directly above his. Just the two of us, no friends or family, living steps from each other, and we did not have sleepovers, did not sleep in each other’s beds, and did not have sex.

Neither of us had particularly strong relationships with God at the time, we were not attending church, had no faith community. We were 23 years old. Ugh. I told myself, for sure, that I was obeying God. I believed the Bible says no sex before marriage. We were honoring that. Right?

Ummm…hog wash.

I just wasn’t that interested in having sex with him. Plain and simple.

After one semester, we skedaddled back to Boulder. In hindsight, it would have been a good time to break up. Life with just the two of us, no friends or family around and no outdoor activities to distract us, wasn’t that great. But we dated a couple more years. And they were good years. I eased up on my expectations for him, became less uptight, and we had a lot of fun times hanging out with our friends, traveling and snowboarding.  

But, things did eventually come to an end. Around the time we broke up, the Wheaton group disbanded. Mandy and her long-time boyfriend broke up. And our roommate, Gina, who bravely left Wheaton without a prospective husband (that’s really what I thought at the time), had found her love in Colorado and was about to be married. Things had flattened out between Matt and me. We grew more distant and lost interest in one another. I think we both sensed that what we had was not the stuff of marriages, or at least, not what we wanted for our marriage. I don’t know if we both became disinterested in one another or if Matt let things go between us because I was no longer interested. 

I can look back at the girl crushes I had in college and realize that is what they were…crushes on girls, even though I did not acknowledge it at the time. However, in my mid-twenties, I developed my first substantial serious attraction to a woman, and I knew it. This felt different, more adult. It was my first professional job, working for a start-up company in Boulder. This lady was my supervisor’s boss. She was quite a bit older than me and carried on a relationship with another woman at work. It was an open secret that they were together. This intrigued me.

I told myself I was only curious about her because she was dating a woman.

But in reality, I was attracted to her. I was infatuated with her.  

From where I sat in my cubicle, I could see her office and would look over there at least 50 times a day, monitoring her comings and goings and who she was meeting with. During company meetings and social events, I was always aware of her presence, where she was and who she was talking to. I asked her to lunch on a couple of occasions. So weird. I mean she was my boss’ boss. But I liked her and wanted her to notice me. She felt a little dangerous because I knew she was bi-sexual or gay and, in theory, could be attracted to me. But she also felt safe because she was already involved with another woman, and I felt like she didn’t take me seriously. I was just a green young thing working my first professional job. She was older, more sophisticated and savvy, and years beyond me professionally. I knew nothing would happen between the two of us. My interest in her remained in my head where it could stay innocent and unreal. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t act on any of my feelings. Nothing.

Until the teacher.