Crushes are a normal part of life, and an enjoyable one, but for some people crushes can almost become a dependency. A crush can be made out of anything, and more importantly you can find one anywhere. Having a crush, for many people, is a way of briefly adding excitement to an otherwise dull daily activity. For example, having a crush on the person who sits behind you in that boring 9am lecture every week can be the thing that makes you want to get up and never miss a single one. Or maybe you count down the hours at your cafe job until that one really cute regular comes in and orders their usual oat cappuccino, and life seems worth living again! Yet, maybe these brief interactions distract us too much from reality, and the true love that might be hiding within them.
In some ways, having a crush is enjoyable because it makes us feel like we’re living through our own romantic story, even for just a few seconds. In 2025, ‘yearning’ seemed to be one of Gen Z’s top words on social media, and personally, I am not surprised. With the global popularity of romance-based shows like The Summer I Turned Pretty and Heated Rivalry, in the last five years, the media has continued to push out more genre-specific romance stories, with the culture embracing the return of strictly romantic narratives. Additionally, we’ve seen an increase of romantic comedies having theatrical releases again, in a throwback to the 90s and early 2000s, rather than most romantic films going straight to streaming. The romance literature genre has also experienced a renaissance online with the emergence of Booktok, which has been dominated by all kinds of romance.
However, with all that being said – reports show Gen Z to be the loneliest generation, with more young people than ever not entering relationships and the term ‘loneliness epidemic’, being more casually thrown around. So, if we’re so great at yearning, why are we yearning alone? What is the link between the young culture’s apparent obsession with romance and its simultaneous lack of it?
It almost seems like we want all of the escapism of romantic love, without the social effort of actual romantic pursuits. After all, crushes have no consequences. We don’t have to make contact or even approach anyone to yearn. It’s another way for us to engage with a romantic narrative, this time, the one we create in our head. We can imagine and create hypothetical scenarios in our head all we want, but at what point are we at risk of getting lost in the daydream?
That’s why, the next time you find yourself crushing over someone, tell them. Don’t be afraid to make the first move. The reality may be better than anything you’ve ever imagined.
Image by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash