Mature Adult Going On 12.

Most people experience their first crush somewhere around their preteens. I don't mean thinking a boy is cute on the playground and chasing him behind the slide, or that crush in 3rd grade where you share your gummy snacks with the boy that sits next to you, but no one else.

I mean the crush that gives meaning to the word "crush." That chest-crushing, lung-strangling, have-to-have-him-or-I'll-die crush when we're just starting to understand the magnitude of our feelings, but not quite what they're capable of.

Then, we hit puberty. And that's the point that I think our brains stop developing as far as our response to our attractions go.

I always thought that as we age, we mature. That's the ideal scenario, anyway. As we get older, we discover new ways to deal with life situations and we get better at it. If something hurts us, we learn how to deal and we come back stronger. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Fool me once, shame on me. Yada, yada, yada.

None of this applies to The Crush. No, it's called a "crush" for a reason and it never gets easier.

Forever accurate.

I had a crush on a coworker for a while. I mean "crush" in the most debilitating, pathetic way possible, of course. He walked by me and I might as well have gone brain-dead. I possibly drooled a little once or twice; these rumors have yet to be confirmed. I worked with him for about three years and I can probably count the number of times I started a conversation with him on one hand. He talked to me a few times, but I can't imagine I said anything remotely intelligent. We never really became friends because, frankly, I was afraid to get too close. (Yes, I can hear you judging me through your monitor. You and everyone else...)

In fact, I have had a few crushes in the past couple years that have brought me to tears more times than I'd like to admit. And for what? Because he's cute? Because he's super nice and funny and we totally have a ton of stuff in common? Yet, they have brought me crumbling the same way I did when I was 12... and 15... and 18... and yesterday.

Sorry, everyone. A crush is a crush and the butterflies don't care to recognize age as maturity. We will get giddy over that total hottie until the day we die. Of course, our idea of "hot" will probably shift a little when we're older, but they still bring about the same emotions and the same tongue-tied, giddy, blushing reaction our brains were trained to have sometime between sharing crayons and grinding at our friends' bar mitzvahs.