Girl Crushes

Last week on "Today" which was blissfully Couric-free, they did an "in-depth" report on this new phenomenon sweeping the nation known as the "girl crush". Now, these girls aren't in LOVE with the objects of their crushing - heavens, no! They are just infatuated with their impeccable style or their really neat hair or the way they run their household or something. In love?...bah. The girl crush is just the idolization of someone you aspire to be someday! Yeah! That's it! And it's new! All new! America's just invented this!

I laughed the whole way through. They trotted out some "experts" and most of the interview was led by Lauer who (ha ha ha) has had girl crushes before and it just seemed so corny and so "we're liberated now because Sarah Jessica Parker had a show where girls talked about liking other girls and stuff but they weren't gay so, you know". It was so patronizing and cheezy and most of the "on the street" girls had crushes on their best friends who they know really well and they're such neat women and like wow.

As you may have guessed, I really hated this report. The girl crush isn't on people you're best friends with. No, dear. That's just admiration and years of mutual support and lots of things in common and LOVE, not crushings. Crushes are when you see a girl and she's so pretty you have to just sneak another peek. Crushes are when you can't really talk to the girl because they wrote some brilliant short story or painted that amazing picture or dedicated their life to a cause. Crushes are on people you're afraid to look the fool in front of because they have this amazing command of the language so you skate around issues and talk innocuously about the weather and the like. It's how you were around boys when you were in high school and yeah, news flash, you may actually be attracted to that person. And you know what, that's okay. Your boyfriend's not going to leave you, you don't have to ask your parents to attend PFLAG meetings, you do not have to start watching "The L Word" (it's not that good anyway), and above all, you're not gay because you like some girl. So, Matt Lauer, you may know just a hint about psychiatry, but you don't know anything about real girl crushes.

A Small Sampling of OAA's Girl Crushes
Dr. Ferrari
Jane Goodall
Shalom Harlow
Natalie Coughlin