Writer's Crushes on Mizahar
It’s Valentine’s Day so I decided I’d scrap about love. No, not the epic romantic “Gone With The Wind” type of love. I’ve never really gotten into stories like Rhett and Scarlets’, which was abusive and damaged from the beginning. Instead I want to talk about the darker side of love. The kind that whispers to you like a drug dealer – just one more hit, one more fix, I can quit anytime, I swear I don’t need this – luring you into the back alleys of your mind. I’m talking about writer’s crushes. I dislike writer’s crushes. I’ve been susceptible to them for years. Now, I'm not talking about jonesing for your favorite authors newest book or for someone you love to write something, anything, out in the real world. I'm talking very specifically about Mizahar Writer's Crushes. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, what a true writer’s crush is, let me explain with metaphor.
In most little girls (and rarer in boys) there’s a horse gland. Scientists haven’t identified it and sometimes it can lay dormant for years. Then out of the blue, they hit a certain age, see something, feel something, and that gland inside of them swells up to huge proportions and start to ooze need. They want a pony, a horse, invent an imaginary friend. They plaster up posters, dream of not knights in shining armor but their white destriers that those heroic boys ride up on. There’s no stopping the gland. It sometimes gets the little girl to talk her parents into riding lessons at a local stable or yet another my little pony or breyer horse.
I think boys (and some girls) might have a similar gland relating to classic cars, first cars, and maybe even motorcycles. I know you have one in regards to Alienware when you go through your gaming phases. But since I’ve never been a boy, I can only write about what I know and that’s the little girl horse gland. Women have it too, sometimes, and I bet you can’t put a beautiful stallion in the room with any woman on the planet and have 99% of them talk to him, brush his mane and tail if grooming tools are available, and add some glitter to his hooves. It’s just truth.
Well, I have a gland for writers. Most of the time its dormant, lying quiet and I’m content to read whatever and whenever my heart desires. That usually equates to a lot of reading. For example, just this week I read three different books. Why? Because I needed something to distract my head from spinning in circles. Sometimes I get a thought in there and I can’t get it out and it becomes boarderline infuriating, so I do my best to distract myself until my subconscious is done processing whatever it was that it felt the need to process. But I won’t get into that story. It’s a long angst filled one that leaves me wanting to punch walls. That’s unhealthy, so I read to cope.
But when it comes to Mizahar, I also read. I browse through threads, find PCs that I think are interesting, and sometimes develop crushes on them. I don’t often write with my crushes because its unhealthy for me to do so. Posting with a crush is the absolute worst thing you can do, as far as I’m concerned. I’d rather wait for them to post to other threads, than experience a wait on a crush. Because if they don’t post, you feel like you’ve been rejected. You sit all alone at your computer, staring at your subscriptions, and seeing only your name as the last post. That’s a rejection. And when you see them posting with others, sometimes multiple times, you tell yourself you’re happy they are really into a thread.
You tell yourself that it’s okay, its fine, you understand, and that you can wait. If its brought up, you shrug your shoulders all cool as a 50’s leather wearing rebel and say ‘its cool, take your time’ …. But the truth is far from the reality. It’s never cool. Its hurtful, and you know that something is definitely wrong with you if you don’t get a post immediately or in a reasonable amount of time. And what they don’t know is how many times you’ve hit refresh on a city forum or pretended to get busy with something else when you see four or five more posts to other people from them or worse yet, them writing for themselves in a solo, and then there’s nothing.
Nothing.
Writing crushes suck. When you post with someone, you are having a conversation with them. No, I don’t mean the dialog in a thread, but the interaction of the two PCs. It’s a dance and a joining of two lives for a brief period of time. And when I crush I crush on people who write intimately, who bare self, and tend to throw things in your face. No, not literally. But I mean these are the people that paint the world around them with color and breathe life with their words. These are the people that when they reveal their characters thoughts and feelings, make you instantly transform to a fly on the wall in their therapy sessions where they bare all to their shrink. Reading a post from a crush leaves me dazzled, breathless, squirming in my chair. I’m a voyeur of the worst kind – a judging one – and if it’s a post for me, my life is complete
Only… my life is complete while I’m reading it… or rereading it. After its over, I’m alone again, looking around, and my writing crush gland is swollen, bleeding, and oozing once more in longing. It was quiet, pure, and shrunk down to nothing while I was getting my hit. I felt warm and complete and utterly without need while I was drinking in the thick sanguine smoke of a crush’s post. Then its over. It’s gone. You’ve crashed… and not yet began to burn.
You burn later… an hour, a day, a week… when nothing more comes. Writer’s crushes are terrible, dark and deadly things that lurk in the not so clean corners of our minds. I can never tell who I’m going to crush on either. I can never put a finger on it until later. I know the factors have to be there. An adrenaline rush when I read their stuff, see their name in the ‘new posts’ list, or start reading their unique voice tends to clue me in that one is developing. I feel invited into their mind, a privy to their inner workings and I love it. Crushing a writer is the worst. And I dread the signs. I usually giggle at something they write. I am not a giggler. I avoid threading with them to avoid the void feeling I get when they post for others and not me. I can tell it’s a crush because I admire the words, fall in love with them, and admire their mind however sane or twisted it might come across.
Writer’s crushes have nothing to do with the players behind the writing. It’s the writing. It’s the words that seduce you in. And sometimes, tragically, it’s the idea of the character more than the concept itself. Crushes aren’t about erotica, romance, seduction, or any sort of physical coming together, but they can actually stimulate the same feelings. Then again, so too can a great meal. To me, sitting down full after a fantastic dinner is a contentment that rivals good sex or even finishing a favorite novel or movie that left you warm and fuzzy. Writers Crushes generate the same sort of euphoric feeling when you get your fix. The words, the beautiful words…..
And don’t misunderstand me. I’m happily married. My crushes aren’t about age, sex, faith, or anything you’d consider them to be perhaps dealing with. I’ve crushed on male and female writers and characters, gay and straight, married and unmarried, young and old. In fact, two of my biggest writing crushes ever were on two male writers who wrote female pcs and there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for them to get my fix from them… in one case being the female’s best friend in game for years, and in the other case telling years’ worth of plotlines for the other. That was back in the day I thought crushes were fine. And it wasn’t the writers. I’d turn my nose up at them writing other characters. I wanted THOSE characters voices and actions in my mind… and I wanted new fresh stuff all the time. When I couldn’t get it, I’d re-read the old stuff… push back from the computer, pat my stomach, and think my eyes just ate filet mignon.
But over the years they’ve taken too much from me. They’ve made me too obsessive. They’ve hurt me too badly sitting alone in the dark wondering when my turn for their attention is going to be. These crushes have left me too rejected, to abandoned, far too alone. And so I run from them now, like a coward runs from things that need them to show true courage. If I like someone’s words, I avoid them like the plague. And if I do make a mistake and thread with them, I know I’m opening myself up to all kinds of yo-yoing. Did they log on today? Did they log on their PC I’m infatuated with? Did they post? Who did they post for? It’s too hard. It’s too painful. And I really can’t stand it. And I know, sooner or later, if I’ve avoided them or pushed them aside, they will come and try to inject themselves into my life again. Why? People can’t stand the thought of others not wanting them. I can’t stand it myself. Unwanted is a terrible state of being, regardless if it’s just a small angle in your life. It’s as bad as unconcerned or tolerated. I want my crushes to crush me. And to my knowledge, that never happens.
People are users.
Not everyone, of course, but enough that if they know you are somehow tangled up in something like a crush, then they can get what they want from you for the price of a post or five minute of plotting. I hate that. It generally doesn’t apply to everyone, but I know the other staffers know how this feels. I’d rather not want them first then be the one that wants and then gets cast aside all for the love of words – a fix. Does that make me a douchebag? Of course it does. But what else can I be in the course of things and under the heavy yoke of a writer’s crush?
I’m not sure this scrap will make any sense to anyone. I honestly don’t care if it does. I’m writing it more for myself anyhow, to get those thoughts out there, to try and explain to myself why I care enough about me to stop reading certain threads, stop doing certain things, and stop worrying if my approach is the right one. I know it is. I’ve done all the wrong things first. That’s in my nature too.
