🔥 The Monday Confession: We've All Done This

Before anyone laughs — before anyone scrolls to the comments to roast the person who caught feelings for an advice column — let me ask you a question: have you ever had a crush on someone you've never met?

A musician whose lyrics felt like they were written about your exact life? An actor who seemed like they'd "get you" if only you could meet? A podcast host whose voice felt like home? A writer whose words made you feel seen in a way that actual people in your actual life somehow don't manage?

Of course you have. We all have. It's called a parasocial relationship — a one-sided emotional connection with someone who doesn't know you exist (or, in this case, who knows you exist but is a column and therefore cannot take you to dinner). And while that term sounds clinical, the feeling is anything but. The feeling is real. The warmth is real. The sense of "this person understands me" is real. What's not real is the relationship itself. And that gap — between a real feeling and an unreal connection — is where some of the most important self-knowledge in your entire dating life is hiding.

💘 1) The Unavailability Magnet: Why Your Heart Keeps Swiping Right on People It Can't Have

Let's get into the psychology of this, because it's fascinating and it applies to way more than just crushes on columnists. It applies to every time you've been more interested in the person who doesn't text back than the one who does. Every time the mystery felt more exciting than the certainty. Every time you chose longing over lunch.

🔬 The Three Reasons We're Drawn to Unavailable People:
  • 1️⃣ Safety through distance. An unavailable person can't reject you in the way a real relationship can. You can adore a columnist, a celebrity, or a stranger's profile from afar without ever having to risk the terrifying vulnerability of being truly known and potentially found lacking. The crush feels intimate, but it's actually the safest form of intimacy there is — because it's one-directional. You control the narrative. They never say anything that disappoints you. They never leave the toilet seat up. They never chew too loudly. They are, in your mind, perfect — and they stay perfect because reality never gets a vote.
  • 2️⃣ Projection as storytelling. When you don't actually know someone, your brain fills in the blanks — and your brain is a generous, optimistic author when left unsupervised. You read someone's clever words and imagine their clever mind. You hear someone's warm advice and imagine their warm home. You see someone's curated profile and imagine their curated life. None of it's real. All of it feels real. And the feeling is so compelling that it can outweigh actual information from actual people who are actually standing right in front of you, being complicated and imperfect and available.
  • 3️⃣ The mirror effect. This is the big one. When you're drawn to someone unavailable, you're often drawn to qualities that you want someone to bring to your life — or qualities you want to develop in yourself. You don't have a crush on the columnist. You have a crush on being heard. You have a crush on someone who pays attention to your words and responds with care. You have a crush on feeling understood. Those are legitimate, beautiful, important needs. They're just aimed at the wrong address.

Crushes reveal your emotional shopping list. They show you what you're hungry for. They illuminate the specific shape of the hole in your life with startling precision. The person who crushes on an advice columnist is telling you: "I want someone who listens to me, who takes my feelings seriously, who responds with warmth and humour and honesty." That's not pathetic. That's a blueprint. That's a map to the kind of relationship you actually want. The only problem is that you've been staring at the map instead of following it.

📌 Monday Principle #1: A crush on someone unavailable is not evidence that something is wrong with you. It's evidence that something is missing for you. The crush is pointing at the gap. Your job is not to fill the gap with the crush — it's to identify what the gap is and go find someone available who can actually stand in it. The compass is not the destination. The compass points at the destination.

🪤 2) The Parasocial Trap: When One-Way Connection Becomes a Substitute for the Real Thing

Here's where I need to get a little bit tough, because there's a version of this that's harmless and a version that's not, and the line between them is thinner than you'd think.

💜 Harmless Crush vs. Problematic Attachment — A Quick Guide:
  • ✅ Harmless: "I really admire this person's way with words. I'd love to find someone who communicates like that." → This is using the crush as information. Well done. Gold star. Carry on.
  • ✅ Harmless: "This column makes me feel understood, and that feeling motivates me to keep looking for real connection." → This is using the crush as fuel. Excellent. A+ coping mechanism.
  • ⚠️ Getting risky: "I keep re-reading these columns instead of responding to actual messages from actual people on this actual app." → This is using the crush as avoidance. The warm glow of one-way understanding is starting to replace the uncomfortable work of two-way relating.
  • 🚨 Problematic: "I've decided that no real person can match this standard, so why bother trying?" → This is using the crush as a wall. The unavailable person has become a reason to stay safely disconnected from everyone who's available.