crush: (slang)- infatuation

Usually innocent, when still considered a crush.. when it becomes scary I think it changes to obsession. I have many crushes, it keeps me young. The word crush reminds me of junior high.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode Guide

Season 5, Episode 14

Crush

Original Air Date: February 13, 2001


This episode opens up in The Bronze. Everyone besides Buffy is dancing. Spike wanders up and sits down with her. They snipe at each other for a while. Then, Xander comes over and kicks Spike out of his seat. Spike wanders off grumpily to the bar, after stealing Xander's money off the table.

A train pulls into the station in Sunnydale. It's the last stop, and yet no one gets off the train. An attendant at the station gets on the train to see what's going on. He screams, and (it is strongly implied) dies violently.

One of the best parts of the episode:
Harmony, in slinky negligee, tells Spike to come to bed. Spike replies that he's not tired. Harmony says she isn't either, and tries to climb into Spike's lap. Spike brushes her off, saying that he's not in the mood. Harmony accuses him of never being in the mood, and suggests that they play a game.... The next shot is of Harmony, dressed in Buffy's clothing, carrying a stake and pretending to be Buffy. Spike pounces on her and they proceed to... ahem

At school, Buffy sees a newspaper article about the train massacre.

Dawn goes to hang out with Spike. Buffy gets worried and goes to look for her. After finding her with Spike, Buffy drags Dawn away, telling her that it's and dangerous to hang out with Spike. Buffy accuses Dawn of having a crush on Spike. Dawn denies it, and says that even if she did, it wouldn't matter because Spike is... totally in love with Buffy.

Buffy and Xander go to check out the train. She tells him about Dawn's revelation about Spike. He thinks it is hysterically funny. While continuing to argue about Spike, they completely miss Drusilla's doll on the train.

Buffy comes home to find Spike hanging out in the kitchen with Dawn and Joyce. Spike tells Buffy that he has a lead on the vampires who ate the train people. Buffy and Spike go out to a warehouse to track down the vampires. Buffy gets more and more uncomfortable. Finally, in the warehouse, Buffy accuses Spike of trying to make the situation into a date. Spike confesses his love. Buffy leaves in a huff.

Spike returns to his and finds... Drusilla. Dru tries to talk Spike into coming back to Los Angeles with her. She says that the V-chip is all in his head (duh? I mean, where else would it be?) and that he could get over it if he tried. Harmony comes in and tries to tell Dru to leave. Spike throws Harmony across the room. (Yay!)

Spike and Dru go to The Bronze, where she kills someone for him to feed on.

Buffy goes over to Spike's place to confront him, and sees Drusilla. Dru electrocutes Buffy with something that knocks Buffy unconscious. And then Spike electrocutes Drusilla. Buffy wakes up to find herself chained up, but sees that Drusilla is also tied. Spike tells Buffy he will prove his love by staking Dru. Buffy says it wouldn't make a difference. Then he threatens to unleash Dru and let her kill Buffy. Buffy again refuses to admit she has any feelings for Spike. Spike rants some more, and then Harmony comes in. Harmony and Spike fight. Dru gets loose, and she and Buffy fight. Finally, Spike intervenes and saves Buffy from Drusilla. Drusilla leaves.

Buffy punches Spike and runs off. He chases her, only to find that he has been "uninvited" from her house and can't go in.


Can I just say that this was my favorite episode so far this season? First of all, I love Spike, and the whole love.... quadrangle?... was just great. Plus, more Dru is always better, as far as I'm concerned. Of course, I'm still hoping that Spike and Buffy will get together. He's so refreshing after Riley, the eternal do-gooder.

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“Our friendship began on a clear, crisp October afternoon one month after the start of senior year...”

- Crush, by Jane Futcher.

Crush by Jane Futcher, published in 1981, is a lesbian teen fiction story of romance and betrayal. The novel is set in the 1960s, specifically in 1964-1965. The setting is in an all-girls boarding school (Huntingdon Hill Boarding School), which, I’m sure, did not seem clichéd at the time.

It’s told in first person from the perspective Jinx, the main character (lesbians in lesbian teen fiction always seem to have bizarre names. It’s one of those unspoken rules of the genre). She develops a crush (big surprise) on a pretty rich girl in the boarding school: Lexie. Lexie is obviously the femme of this relationship.

Lexie turns out, however, to not be the ideal relationship partner. She is bossy, and always used to getting her way. She orders Jinx around until the protagonist is doing things she would never otherwise consider. The butch of this relationship is a pushover, a doormat. She’d rather cry herself to sleep than risk offending anyone.

(spoilers follow) But eventually Jinx can no longer put up with being Lexie’s slave or plaything. She attempts to stand up to her, and the effort is not met with any sort of compliance. In the traditional style of lesbian fiction, and lesbian teen fiction in particular, this story does not have a happy ending. Lexie betrays Jinx to the school authorities and the protagonist is thrown out of school.

Some readers, actually, celebrate this novel’s unhappy ending. They describe being sick of the “sappy” endings modern glbtq teen fiction usually get. This, however, is a very recent phenomenon. Unhappy endings for glbtq are far more the norm when examining earlier published works. (spoilers end here)

In Huntingdon Hill Boarding School, homosexuality is treated like a mental illness. This was a reflection of attitudes in the 1960s, but the same sort of arguments were still taking place at the time of Crush’s publication.

Crush is still in print today, and although it is not considered classic lesbian teen fiction, many lesbian teen readers still enjoy the novel and relate to the Lexie and especially Jinx characters.


I’m not sure that I believe in flukes, kismet or luck. I believe that, for the most part, you get out of life what you put in. It angers me when people don’t appreciate what they have, and I admire people who persevere against the odds.

But I do know a boy from my hometown (let’s call him K) who, if luck exists, is the luckiest person I know. He was a typical smalltown boy; came from a broken and penniless home, didn’t do well at school, but not too badly; scraped into one of the lesser-known universities with bad grades, then dropped out. You would have thought that his youthful exuberance would burn out, but things always seemed to happen to him. K was involved in a minor accident, which left no scars, and was awarded a sizeable amount of compensation, enough for a house. K dated an American heiress. K won one of those magazine prizes, a holiday for two in the Bahamas. K blagged his way into one of the Top Six accountancy firms, in computing; he specialised in an elite area, and his salary trebled in 2 years. K moved to America and took his private pilots licence, set up a consultancy.

I had a terrible crush on him when we were teenagers, back to the days when people thought he was slightly odd, before he became so confident and crazy cool. We never kissed, and we left our hometown for university at the same time. That first Christmas, when everyone was back for the holiday, I was jealous to see K with the tall, beautiful American girl.

The next time I saw him was the following year, when I met up with his sister in London. I went up to sell my saxophone: I was broke, and needed the money, though it hurt me badly to part with it. The case was worth more than the saxophone: a beautiful antique Selmer case, built to house a clarinet and saxophone, lined in red velvet. I was surprised when he turned up. He spoke about an ex-girlfriend, a Brazilian, who was a dancer. He said I could stay at his place that night, but I caught the train back to university, anyway.

Then a few years later – after my parents had sold the family home, and moved away, so I had no reason to go back to the place where we grew up – I received a call from one of my hometown lads. They had been out with K that night and were taunting him that he was so rich and yet so miserly, had said “share the wealth!”, and in response he had booked them all into the most expensive hotel in town. They were drinking champagne on K’s expense, and wanted me to join them. K snatched the phone off N and said he wanted me to come; he said that he remembered that I was rather good-looking. I felt bad that his memory of me was so vague, although perhaps it was the drink talking, or perhaps he was dissembling. I was in Exeter when they called, about to catch a train back to the city where I now live. I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror: I thought I looked awful. I was also tired and despondent. I tried to put on some make-up and be more animated but nothing in the world would have made me feel better that night. I weighed up my options as I looked at the train departure display: should I go to my flat, or my hometown? I had a great desire to see K, but also a desire for comfort and rest. But then my fatigue and lack of self-confidence won, and I went back to my empty flat. It was winter, and I felt cold.

They say if you stand at Piccadilly Circus for long enough, you will see everyone you have known in your entire life. Well, a few years after the drunken phone call, I was in London for my birthday with some girlfriends. We alighted at Piccadilly Circus, and I suddenly realised that I was walking too fast, and I stopped and looked over my shoulder for my friends. I didn’t feel any surprise when I spotted K in the crowd behind me; I thought: “Ahh, it’s K.” He was with a beautiful Spanish girl, apparently another ex. I waited until he drew close before I called his name. We had a nice talk; he was confused to see me, gave me a kiss for my birthday. The Spanish girl smiled at me and I wondered how anyone could be so beautiful.

That was the last time we had contact, and I haven’t heard anything about him since. I do see him on facebook now; in the black and white picture of him he is sitting in the middle of the road, it’s quite indistinct, but seems in character. He looks like an independent chancer. He’s lost most of his hair, which surprises me. My strongest memory is walking up the high street one morning when we were 16, and seeing him sitting on the back of a truck driving past with some others, off to do temporary labour work to earn money for college. They were all singing and the wind ruffled his hair.

He was in a motorbike accident when we were teenagers, and the song ‘High and Dry’ by Radiohead always reminds me of him.

If luck exists, I hope he’s still lucky.

I am so full of infatuation for everything as of late. I am in awe of my own courage but know this is foolish and will not last long. Even my dreams have been invaded so that I wake up nostalgic for something that never was. Oh! I am so frantic with desire. I miss someone I have yet to get comfortable with. I long for a closeness of more tangible qualities than abbreviated words typed in a rush and sent across the telephone wires. I sit, cautiously defying the urge to drop all commitments and surround myself with indifference. I’ll find a job in a sleazy café, slave away, merely to obtain a foothold in a quest for distraction.

I drink down a glass of your sweetest compliments on a habitual basis now; consequently wanting more. I stepped out in an obnoxiously giddy mood yesterday, feeling terribly nervous that people would think me drunk when I wasn't. Indeed, it was your image in my head sending me in directions across the pavement, not a vague pool of wine in my stomach. I cannot fathom drinking to enjoy myself. Frankly, I find no need to.

I am human, not a machine. I am certainly not cold nor mechanical, despite desperate attempts to acquire this. I am sorting through your features and limbs in my head. Categorising the parts I want to remember for later.

I am going out on a whim for you. I sit here waiting for an invitation. I am mulling you over in my every cell. I wish you were still a mystery, sometimes.

I would stop asking for so much but you keep me spoiled, young man.

Crush (kr?sh), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Crushed (kr?sht); p. pr. & vb. n. Crushing.] [OE. cruschen, crousshen, Of. cruisir, croissir, fr. LL. cruscire, prob. of Ger. origin, from a derivative of the word seen in Goth. kruistan to gnash; akin to Sw. krysta to squeeze, Dan. kryste, Icel. kreysta.]

1.

To press or bruise between two hard bodies; to squeeze, so as to destroy the natural shape or integrity of the parts, or to force together into a mass; as, to crush grapes.

Ye shall not offer unto the Lord that which is bruised, or crushed, or broken, or cut. Lev. xxii. 24.

The ass . . . thrust herself unto the wall, and crushed Balaam's foot against the wall. Num. xxii. 25.

2.

To reduce to fine particles by pounding or grinding; to comminute; as, to crush quartz.

3.

To overwhelm by pressure or weight; to beat or force down, as by an incumbent weight.

To crush the pillars which the pile sustain. Dryden.

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again. Bryant.

4.

To oppress or burden grievously.

Thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway. Deut. xxviii. 33.

5.

To overcome completely; to subdue totally.

Speedily overtaking and crushing the rebels. Sir. W. Scott.

To crush a cup, to drink. [Obs.] -- To crush out. (a) To force out or separate by pressure, as juice from grapes. (b) To overcome or destroy completely; to suppress.

 

© Webster 1913.


Crush (kr?sh), v. i.

To be or become broken down or in, or pressed into a smaller compass, by external weight or force; as, an eggshell crushes easily.

 

© Webster 1913.


Crush, n.

1.

A violent collision or compression; a crash; destruction; ruin.

The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds. Addison.

2.

Violent pressure, as of a crowd; a crowd which produced uncomfortable pressure; as, a crush at a peception.

Crush hat, a hat which collapses, and can be carried under the arm, and when expanded is held in shape by springs; hence, any hat not injured by compressing. -- Crush room, a large room in a theater, opera house, etc., where the audience may promenade or converse during the intermissions; a foyer.

Politics leave very little time for the bow window at White's in the day, or for the crush room of the opera at night. Macualay.

 

© Webster 1913.

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