The Crush Cycle: When Longing for Love Leads You to Unavailable Places

What's Up Viva Fam,

It started, as it often does, with admiration. You discover an artist, a performer, someone in the public eye whose work resonates. You follow their journey, maybe support their efforts to rebuild, and feel a sense of connection to their story. It's inspiring. Then, something shifts. Admiration morphs into something more intense, something consuming – a crush.

But this isn't just any crush. It's on someone you've never met, someone who is, by the very nature of their public profile, fundamentally unavailable for a real, reciprocal relationship with an individual fan.

Maybe you lean into it. You listen constantly, repost everything, become deeply invested. You feel a connection. You might even start to think, based on general online interactions or your hopes, that maybe, just maybe, they see you. That thought – the idea of their interest – electrifies the crush, making it an all-consuming focus.

Then comes the pain. The inherent lack of personal reciprocity in a fan-to-public-figure relationship starts to sting. The reality sinks in that the connection you feel is one-sided. It hurts, deeply. In an attempt to stop the pain, you cut off contact, delete the follows, purge the comments, stop listening.

But the relief doesn't come. Instead, the void left behind is filled with the ache of the crush, haunting your thoughts and even your dreams. You cut the external link, but the internal feelings remain, raw and unaddressed.

And then, the truly frustrating part: after the pain subsides a little, the cycle repeats with someone else. You find yourself developing another intense, unattainable crush, just like before.

Recognizing the Pattern: It's Not Just a Crush

When this happens repeatedly, you realize it's not about the specific people you're crushing on. It's a pattern. And recognizing the pattern is the first, crucial step towards breaking it.

Through honest self-reflection, the triggers often become clearer. It moves from simple admiration, to the perception that they might be interested, and eventually, as the pattern deepens, you might realize the true trigger is even more fundamental: the powerful idea or thought of someone loving you.

The "Bingo" Moment: Unmet Needs

This realization is often the "bingo" moment. That a crush is triggered by the idea of being loved points to a deeper truth: the pattern is driven by a profound, likely unmet, longing for love and belonging.

This longing can be amplified by circumstances involving isolation, a lack of reciprocal relationships in daily life, challenging family dynamics, or past experiences that left deep needs for validation and connection unfulfilled. When the need for love and belonging isn't met in real, tangible ways, the brain searches for alternatives. Unattainable figures become compelling objects for these intense feelings because the fantasy can be maintained without the complexities or potential rejections of real relationships. The distance provides a kind of "safety" for the intense feeling, even as it guarantees the pain of non-reciprocity.

The Hard Truth: Breaking the Cycle Requires Addressing the Root

Getting over one crush at a time isn't enough because it doesn't address the underlying reason the pattern exists. The recurring cycle is a symptom of that unmet need for love and belonging.

The direct, "no chaser" truth is this: To break the pattern of intense, one-sided crushes on unavailable people, you have to shift your focus from managing the crushes to addressing the root cause – the longing for love and belonging – by finding ways to build reciprocal connection in your actual life.

This is challenging work. It requires courage to face potential loneliness, to navigate complex personal circumstances, and to slowly build genuine relationships where connection and love can flow in both directions. It means directing your energy towards people you can interact with, who can see you and respond to you in a real way.

Professional support is invaluable in this process. A therapist, particularly one experienced with the complexities of isolation, attachment, and potentially neurodiversity, can help you understand why the idea of love is such a powerful trigger, address underlying beliefs about your worthiness of connection, and develop strategies for building the genuine relationships and support systems you need and deserve.

Recognizing this pattern for what it is – a sign of a deep, human need for connection – is a powerful first step. The next, brave step is to turn towards your real life and begin the work of building the connections that will truly fulfill that longing for love and belonging.

This post touches on how loneliness can drive us towards unexpected connections. How do you navigate feelings of loneliness, and where do you find genuine belonging in your life?