So, I've been on my own for quite a while, and I recently realized, that to cope with that, my mind has found a funny way to keep the juices flowing and the mind at work.
Inspired by Autostraddle's "The Seven Stages of Carol", here I present you, with my Seven Stages of Infatuation. Have you recently met a girl that you liked? Does this thing I wrote work for you too? Aren't you a dork!
1. Leveling Up
Throughout meeting your new crush, you are unknowingly on an ascent. Perhaps you've felt a slight rocking of the platform, when she laughed at one of your jokes, or at her body language, when she crossed her legs while listening to you tell a story. But it's not until the meeting ends, that you realize how high you climbed. This place, you’ve been here before. It’s spacious and beautiful. Why do you feel so small? The ocean’s like that too, you remember. For now, you’d like to live in this place.
2. Implosion
Also known as "spiraling", this is the emotional comedown. Like drugs, your serotonin levels have been depleted and possibly, you're dehydrated. You've witnessed for yet, another time, in your life, your heart screaming as if she was the first - your heart HAS screamed until it got short of breath, and girl... you are reeeeeeling. Implosion often presents the first time you're confronted with an everyday reality. Maybe, on your way home, after meeting up with her, an image of hers that's louder than any other thought, comes on and breaks your train of thought so abruptly that you scream "OH MY GOD" or maybe, the next day, you're trying to pay a bill and you forget your purse at the counter because you were reminded of the way she smiles. Either way, take heed.
3. Enabling
This is where you feed your emotional captor as a means of survival. Oh, you should watch what she posted on Facebook (JUMP CUT: Three hours later you've exhausted her news feed from the last two months). Remember what she said about her favorite film? Haha, you have to watch this, or you're going to have nothing to say the next time you meet! Should you read that novel she mentioned? Eesh, here are some weird facts about the author on Wikipedia. What's up with her best friend? Show me your friend, and I'll tell you, who YOU are, right? Why doesn't she have a Twitter account? That's ok, what if you could follow her on Tumblr? This photo of hers from last year looks like she asks you to take her home with her. That song she just posted is SO good. Let's listen to it on repeat for about half an hour.
4. Outreach
Soon enough, your engagement with your potential belle becomes too isolated and finding an outlet for your thoughts about her is necessary. Whether it's sending her photo to your best friend to ask for her opinion, or sharing a previous FB chat of yours, with your gay pal, to ask him if he thinks you stand a chance, you'll need to unpack. You'll ask them the questions you've been asking yourself, like, does she sound interested enough? Isn't that comment she made about dildos, like she tried to make a pass at you? Or, do they think you and her are in the same headspace? They probably can't tell, anyway. Sorry!
5. Speculation
Left again to your own devices, you'll have to come up with new ways to indulge. Obviously, the "everybody's gay" game is great for this. Sure, you don't know if she's gay or not, but, like, what if she is? The closest you've ever come to looking at a girl like this, is when one of your co-workers brought in doughnuts for everybody. So sweet. You are completely distracted. Also, this girl has three friends on Facebook that are in the circuit and definitely sleep with women. No way that could be a coincidence!
6. Vizualization
With the passing of time, comes some clarity. You're able to distance yourself from the scrambled intensity you felt since you first saw her, and can now think of her as a concept that you can incorporate into your life. How she is both casual and wild reckless in her proposition to go take a swim together, or how direct and vulnerable she is when she talks about her depressed father. These ideas seem as decadent as someone suggesting you married each other at Las Vegas at a random chapel, but what if the rings looked good on you, too?
7. Anticipation
All of the stages above, are distraction, that you've created for yourself, until you can see her again, which you plan to do tomorrow, as soon as she calls you to set a time to catch up and have that cup of coffee.
