14 Telltale Signs You’re Always Crushing On Someone (Even When You’re In A Relationship)

1. You had an elementary school boyfriend, or girlfriend.

2. You like to be desired, but not in a greedy way or in a way that suggests you’re attention-seeking. Simply: You enjoy the feeling of mutual attraction with someone and don’t want to feel guilty for it.

3. You are 100% someone who likes flirting for the sake of flirting. Whether you’re in a relationship, or not, it’s not as though you want to take someone home, but you like the practice of interacting in an ~~alluring~~ way.

4. You like to, for want of a better phrase, to call “dibs” on someone. You can be a little territorial in that you want to meet someone, and appreciate the knowledge that they like YOU and you like them and that is HAPPENING, so no one get in your way. What? It’s not weird. It’s just competitive but in a lowkey, totally cute kind of way. Ish.

5. You aren’t wandery-eyed because you don’t actually want to cheat on your significant other, but you’ll also be damned if you’re not going to occasionally fantasize about other people. It’s a natural thing, that you’re not going to overthink, or feel guilty for.

6. Okay, fine. You ARE going to feel guilty for it, but then you’ll decide it’s totally justified because your significant other totally does it too and they don’t feel guilty, so why should you? Goddamn those double standards.

7. You’re used to worrying about someone not texting you back, or whether you should text them first, because that has, unfortunately, become our norm, and now if we don’t have it, what do we have to worry about and/or entertain ourselves with?

8. You have a good eye for spotting attractive people. Like, you’re genuinely fun to go out with because you know exactly when to point out a hot guy/girl in a subtle way.

9. Plus, you like falling for someone who you don’t know and have never spoken to, because you can’t ruin the illusion for yourself. As soon as you have more than a 10 minute conversation with them, they’ll lose most of their appeal. But as long as they’re just someone you pass on the street every so often, see at a mutual friend’s house but never interact with, or who works in the same coffee house as you, they’re pretty perfect.

10. You get attached to the idea of someone, rather than the way they actually are. Whether it’s the guy you run into every so often, or a friend you’ve been crushing on for years, you have a distinct picture in your head of how they would be if they were in a relationship with you. But you’re not actually interested in finding out if that image is totally unfounded, or not.

11. You’re a fan of love. It kicks you when you’re down, it’s unrequited, it leaves you in tears when you move away, or it doesn’t work out. But despite all that, you’re a believer. Like, The Monkees. Or Smash Mouth.

12. You have a crush for each category. Your collegiate crush (the kid down the hall, your TA), your gym crush (who always shows up at the exact same time as you do), your work crush (you have no idea what department they work in but you reallllllly want to say hi, and definitely never will).

13. You’re in a long distance relationship, and you don’t want to cheat, but you like to have something to think other than the fact that the next time you see your significant other will be in three months.

14. You are an aspirational Facebook creeper, in that you see a handsome man, or woman, and you can’t help but think they’d look just as nice smiling next to you, while casually looking at the sunset, at that vacation spot you’ve always wanted to go to. You then shut the computer immediately, because what the hell are you doing crushing on your cousin’s ex’s new girlfriend?