The First Crush is the Deepest
5 minute read
There’s a time in an 11-year-old’s life when the cute puppy posters adorning the bedroom wall get elbowed into the cold by broody boy bands in tank tops and badly-fitting leather jackets. In my case it was a Labrador who was made mincemeat of by A-ha. Morten Harket in his white tank top, ripped blue jeans and a blue-steel look to rival Ben Stiller. But it wasn’t Morten who stole my young, innocent and slightly left-of-centre heart, it was Mags, in his fairisle off-the-shoulder jumper that, nowadays you’d pay a fortune for, and his seagull mop of sandy blonde hair that looked a bit like he’d had a fight with a crimping iron. I would cut photos of him into heart shapes and stick them to my school notebook. He was the slightly scruffier sidekick to Morten, not too preened or perfect. I didn’t know it then but it was to be just how I liked my men.
“Mags?” my friends screamed, peeling with laughter. “At least it’s not Pal,” I’d scream back. Poor Pal, he had a distinct lack of chiselled cheek bones or ‘come-to-bed’ eyes unlike his fellow bandmates. Soon after A-ha, Bros arrived, with aplomb, and had everyone wearing those stupid bottle top boots, myself included. And while everyone was lusting after the twin brothers Matt and Luke, I was dreaming about Craig (and occasionally Matt and Luke). There were brief dalliances with Adam Ant, Corey Haim, Michael J Fox and several members of the Neighbours cast, including a major lust for Scott Michaelson (aka Brad Willis), the surfer dude with the square jaw and the blond hair that fell loosely over his perfect face, sigh. I was starting to develop a type.
From there it morphed from 2d posters and TV screens to real-life boys, mainly a glut of my brothers’ friends who would frequent our house after school on a daily basis. We had a playroom in the garden which became the neighbourhood den. My sister and I would arrive home to the air thick with teenage testosterone and hang around like wide-eyed fauns, playing pool and flirting. There was lovely Liam, the straight-laced nerd with hair like Mags and Jimmy, the tall handsome Elvis lookalike who was far too nice and kind to last the distance. Then two weeks shy of my 14th birthday, cool Kevin asked me out. He was 17, I was 13. We arranged to meet at ‘the bridge’ – one of our local hangouts where he pulled out two tickets for the Four of Us concert at the National Stadium and a box of chocolates. He was handsome with a shock of dark curls that hung over his chocolate brown eyes and a smattering of freckles over his nose. I was smitten. My friends at school spent the best part of two weeks (the entire length of our relationship) writing the ‘score of 17:13’ on blackboards around the school but deep down I was chuffed. I was the youngest in my year and I’d drawn the attention of a cool 17-year-old (did I mention how cool he was?).
It was when I came home from school one day and found him sitting in my kitchen wearing a beret speaking French to my parents that the cool factor started to tip into cold. He’d come by on his bike after school (always with the damn beret) to chat to my parents when I wasn’t there and leave me presents… ick. After that, there was Fergie – tall, blonde, surfer type, who I mainly saw through binoculars (I know, don’t judge). My cousin had a grá for his cousin, a dark moodier version of Fergie, and both happened to summer in Kerry like us. We’d stand in my parents’ garden watching them through binoculars as they skirted around the bay in boats. In the evening we’d hit the village and loiter around hoping to bump into them. Our relationship existed solely in my head; I daydreamed about our imaginary life together and it was lovely. I never so much as got a word in with Fergie let alone a snog, despite my long-standing crush, which lasted two summers. I met him several years later on the beach, both of us trailing young kids, and much to my surprise, my heart did skip a little beat. I also met Kevin several times, and still keep in touch, but my heart didn’t so much as flicker and I realised that my crush on Fergie was intense because it was unrequited.
Few of us have not felt the glorious pain of unrequited love. Like lab rats, we return again and again to the same experience and tap, tap, tap it with our noses knowing the agony that ensues.
I read somewhere recently that the brains of people deeply in love do not look like those of people experiencing strong emotions, but instead like those of people snorting coke. Love, in other words, uses the neural mechanisms that are activated during the process of addiction. In those moments of a crush, we are deeply addicted to the other person that often makes us behave irrationally. It cuts deep at the time but the yearning is also one of the most exquisite types of agony there is, fuelling many a bad poem, but also many great works of art: Great Expectations, Cyrano de Bergerac, Enduring Love are just a few books with unwanted devotion at their core. What is life without longing anyway; romantic infatuation is a goal, of sorts, a way to move forward. It might disrupt the status quo but it also ignites our passion. Teenage crushes are often so idealised they hold no real lasting power, hence why we were able to jump around various boy band members within the week. They are early approximations of love and signify a lot about the dreamer.
But then you grow up, pull down the posters and age out of the depth of feeling that can inspire you to stick heart-shaped photos of Mags to your school notebook. The infatuation morphs as your personality and confidence grow, although you’re never too old for a smouldering celebrity crush or the capacity to feel real intense attraction still, albeit in a more controlled way perhaps. After leaving school there were several long-term boyfriends. One for six years with a distinct resemblance to (un) cool Kevin and my now husband, who has a definite air of Mags with a surfer bent. I definitely have a type, or two if you will, and realise that while one heartthrob may replace another and fads change, we still have the capacity to feel as we did when we were 13. Do we ever really change?
My friend from school recently sent me a picture of Mags at a concert in May 2022. He was standing at the keyboard, his mop of sandy hair more coiffed, and looking a little thicker around the waist (aren’t we all), being all Norwegian cool. But nearly 40 years later I realised I still would. I guess some things never change.
Orla Neligan, August 2022
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