I Crush You

(I figure that today, I'm far removed from the gentlemen in question.  So suck it, unrequited love or something like it).

1.I'd rather dance with you (Kings of Convenience)

           First Intense Infatuation wasn't a genius wünderkind.
           You hardly talked to him during training. He stumbled through a class report, clearly hungover. It's surprising how quickly you fell—the too-cool party animal was never your type. Most of the time his fratboy behavior made that niggling crush go away.
           But your cheeks flushed anyway, when he'd rest his shoulders against the wall two inches from your face. You wrote a story that will never see the light of day. And despite yourself, as you saw him glide through the hall four years later, you thought about the warmth of his arms.

 2.Everything you want (Vertical Horizon)

          In college, you and your friend fell in like with the same guy.
          She got to him first, however, and pretty and vivacious (and thin) that she was, you stood no chance of wandering beyond Friend Zone. And so, you spent lunches with him talking of inconsequentially important things, quipping from musicals and reveling in geekery. For the first time in your life, a man actually got you, cresting on the same lonely wavelength.
           You could have been the one for him too...if he actually had noticed you.

3.Curbside Prophet (Jason Mraz)

          The man was shorter than you, and to be honest, wasn't quite as good-looking as another colleague. But there was something intrinsically charming about him, a magnetism that relied on wit and earnestness. This was a guy who could conquer mountains with his words and passion. You never let on about your attraction, convinced you were alone in finding him attractive.
          Years later, you and he have a chance encounter, and all your girl friends who knew him sigh in admiration.
           Go figure.

 4.You're So Damn Hot (Ok Go) 

           By now, you thought, you really should have learned your lesson.
           Alas, Cupid Lite strikes again, this time in the form of a twinkly-eyed senior attending your sophomore class. Contact is minimal, blushing at the optimum, and your awkward sleuthing leaves much to be desired.
           It's a hollow re-realization when you stare at the mirror and take in your appearance.
           You've got no game, and the man's a top athlete.

5.You're So Vain (Carly Simon)

          Your interactions with the objects of your almost-affection always follow a pattern, and the latest, brief one was no different.
           First comes that sudden awareness, blindsided by the wideness of his grin, the twinkle in his eyes, his general hygiene. Then comes the ludicrous fantasies that you eventually blurt out, as a grievous tactical error, to your friends. Finally, the One Incident that puts all your daydreaming to a screeching halt.
           Forever alone.

Women of Fiction I Really Shouldn't Emulate

Elaine, Lady of Shalott

     You're still only half-sick of shadows.
     Half-sick is not nearly enough to venture out of your tower (a.k.a. Fortress of Solitude, despite your never really being a fan of Superman). It is not enough to put down your brush and your pen, to cease weaving wonders of worlds of your own making.
     You're terrified of lying in your metaphorical funeral bower, unknown and unloved, while the future object of your affections goes tirra-fucking-lirra.
     Ass.

Scheherezade

     

     A hundred and one nights, and several years later, her story still fascinates you – woman using her imagination and her guile to stay her execution and win their salvation.

     Then you realize the sultan was a freaking serial killer, and the vizier's daughter a classic victim of Stockholm's Syndrome.

     There goes another one of your fantasies.

Miss Haversham

     You can easily imagine yourself stranded at the altar, the erstwhile groom a schuckster hankering for your parents' money.

     But then again, launching a decades-long scheme of revenge and bitterness seems far too involved. Besides, all that lace would drive you mad.

     Oh.

Ophelia

     Sometimes you think you are turning slowly, inexorably insane. Memories bite at you, tear at you, crash into you like that motorcycle nearly a decade ago. From all outward appearances you have no mouth, but inside, you are screaming. Screaming. SCREAMING.

     There will be a sweet freedom in madness, you think, as you run on the inside of your skull.

Buttercup

     Life is pain. Anybody who tells you different is selling something.

     It should worry you that that line is becoming your mantra.

T.I.I.S.

(There's supposed to be a picture with this, but hell, I'm far too lazy. And my sister has my Tablet. Oh well. Let the neurotic bitterness commence!)

Wedding dress

Because your sister had her prom night, your mother placed a bridal magazine on the dinner table. Because it was there, you read it. And because you read it, you now find yourself obsessed with the topic, scrutinizing brightly-colored saris, frantically searching for the Labyrinth gown in the dream sequence, sighing over Grace Kelly’s lacy profile as she wed her literal prince.
This is rapidly becoming alarming.

Text message

You’re happy for her, of course. After roughly two years of declaiming and cursing lovelives—lack thereof—you’re glad at least one of you will finally no longer be TIIS.
Then again…

Bitter

Upon reflection, you conclude. Mr. Darcy is an elitist ass, Heathcliff an obsessive sociopath, and Crisostomo Ibarra (cough, cough) a misogynistic playboy who is obviously a vehicle for the desires of his creator. You blame Byron—the cad—for your weakness to pretty antisocial bastards in books and television and movies, and rightfully scorn true love as nothing more than a construct devised by Western, he-man-as-hero-woman-as-weaker-vessel, hegemony on society.
The conspicuous stack of curly-scripted books below your bed says otherwise.

Virgin goddess

Sometimes, in your (not so) brief moments of delusion, you wonder if you’ll stay in this state forever. Constrained by your chaste upbringing and paranoia of anything remotely approaching commitment, you’d like to run forever, like Artemis illuminated by the moon, or as Athenaeternally wrap yourself up in books and justice.
Your namesake, you also note, is the Maiden of Celtic mythology, the proclaimed queen of the fairies.
Since high school, your friends have been calling you Immaculate Mother, for reasons best left unexplained.
It appears you’re stuck in the tower.

Dream

When all is said and done, however, you still fall to pieces upon waking.
Your lips still tingle from the imaginary kiss.