Crushes and True Love: How Do You Tell the Difference?

The feeling of love is naturally built into humans.  It's rare for someone not to feel love or at least a semblance of it.  When we're young, a hint of love can sometimes come to us in the form of a crush.  Only when we have significantly matured do we become capable of real loving. Even as adults, we do still experience having crushes now and again.  In the search for the real thing, how do you tell the difference between a crush and true love?

Defining a crush

A crush is simple infatuation.  It's easy to tell this from true love because it's mostly physical attraction that drives it.  A crush is a feeling of strong admiration for someone you've met or already know.  It can be very intense, which often results to having your thoughts filled by that other person, what they look like, what they said, how they move, etc.

A crush can be disadvantageous in some ways because unlike true love, it usually doesn't stay in the heart for so long.  In many cases, it is as short-lived as it is intense.  It doesn't survive arguments, jealousy, long distances apart and the temptation of other potential relationships.  Unlike true love, a crush very rarely survives after a long period of time.  

This explains why you could meet someone you had a crush on after a long time apart and you may not always feel the same intensity you did way back when you were first together.

True love, on the other hand, may or may not be as intense as a crush but it has a long shelf life.  True love, as opposed to a crush, lets you see a person as they really are and not just some sugar-coated fantasy that you have conjured in your mind.  You see the flaws and the shortcomings but are not put off by them.  In fact, your love for the person could even grow stronger because of these imperfections.  Crushes barely survive the same challenge.

True love, unlike crushes, also tends to grow stronger in time.  It may change slightly but it becomes a deeper involvement.  It can survive time and distance, which explains why people who find their true love remain faithful even after a long absence.

That being said, crushes aren't so bad at all.  In fact, they're good for the soul.  They open up possibilities of relationships and feelings.