KILL THAT CRUSH! OTHERWISE TEST IT!

Following my article on “Crush Management Attitude; Love or Lust?” (you can read it if you haven’t read yet), you must understand that to manage a crush with a lovely attitude is to do two things: to either kill it or test it. A crush is worth killing when there is no or extremely little possibility of marriage. Below are six instances that merit the killing of a crush:

1. When marriage is far away from both of you. I don’t see why you should consider a crush when both of you see marriage about 10 years ahead of you and especially when there is very little chance or no chance at all that you’ll interact with each other or see each other often. I think it will just limit you and most likely lead you to do things that will leave you with regrets later.

2. When marriage is far away from one of you. I don’t see why you should consider a crush when although you are considering marriage in 3 years’ time, the other person is considering marriage in 10 years’ time, or vice versa. That may even be a sign that marrying that person is a mistake.

3. When the other person is not interested in you and/or is interested in someone else. I don’t see why you should entertain a crush when you know very well that the other person has no interest in you whatsoever or is interested in someone else. Doing that will simply waste your time and cause you more emotional pain that it should, if it will. Love is a choice and therefore cannot be forced on people. If the person doesn’t like you, move on. There surely are others who will like you, just the way you are. Trust God to lead you to the right person and at the right time.

4. When the person you are crushing on is already hooked up or attached to someone else. Attached or hooked up here refers to dating, engaged or married. I don’t see why you should allow yourself to be used by the devil to destroy someone’s joy. Each time you are tempted to do that just ask yourself whether you will be okay if someone does the same thing to you. Let the golden rule be your golden rule where you “…do to others what you would have them do to you…” (Matthew 7:12).

5. When you, or the other person or both of you have made a decision that requires that you stay celibate. Once during the question and answer session at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, in Ghana, where I spoke on relationships, a young lady asked this question: There’s this friend of mine who “loves” a guy who is a seminarian (catholic priest). The guy also claims to like her and apparently they can’t be together because the guy can’t marry. What’s the best way to help her get over him? I’m sure you can guess my answer right? I wonder why you would put yourself in such a precarious situation! This is just a perfect situation that calls for killing of the crush.

6. When your crush is a price-triggered crush (see my article on The Passion Of A Crush for more details on crush triggers), and is on someone you don’t know, meet occasionally or are not likely to meet at all. This is common among price-triggered crushes especially on celebrities.

On the other hand, a crush is worth testing when there exists some probability that marriage will be possible. This can apply in two scenarios. First, when marriage is not so close but you are quite convinced that the person is someone you would like to spend the rest of your life with and at the same time when you’re likely to meet or work with the person often for a relatively long period of time. I know a young man who had a crush on a young lady during our sophomore in the university. Although marriage was about 8 or so years ahead of him, his friendship with her had given him quite a good number of reasons to consider her for marriage. Besides, both of them were serving in the same ministry and for at least the next three years, they were going to meet each other often and work with each other. In fact, they actually worked in the same department in the ministry till they completed university and after school, they worked in that same ministry for another year. Although he didn’t mention it to her when he realized he liked her, he decided to test it until after school and he did. Today they are dating and preparing for marriage.

The second scenario which makes a crush worth testing is when the crush occurs at a time when there exists a possibility of marriage in the near future (between a year and 4 years in my opinion). If the person is someone you have known for some time you can test it for a relatively shorter period than when you don’t really know the person.

As I conclude, please take note that the difference between killing the crush and testing the crush is the mindset behind your decision to manage the crush, however both of them are driven by a loving mindset.

Finally, irrespective of whether you are killing the crush or testing it, managing the crush requires that you apply the same crush management techniques, although the intensity of application will vary for each of them. Check my article on Crush Management – The Best Techniques for more on the crush management techniques.