I periodically think about doing one of those “If you have a crush on me you have to tell me!!!!” tweets but I cannot see it ending with anything other than awkwardness and misery for everyone

I did confess a crush to someone over DM this week tho, felt very proud of myself for my bravery

(Someone I felt reasonably certain would not be horrified, haha)

BTW just want to return to this to say that while *of course* I have this fantasy of just effortlessly getting the person of my dreams to slide into my DMs with a tweet demanding to know who has crushes on me, the reality is those things are bait for parasocial crushes.

For whatever reason, I feel like a lot of people have narratives in their head about who I am that are not particularly rooted in fact, and people who have crushes on me from a distance are just infatuated with some fantasy version of me and not a real person.

If you genuinely think I’m someone you would want to forge a relationship with, the best way to do that is to at the very least form a rapport, if not friendship, with me first. (Advice, I think, which goes for people beyond me too!)

Also the other thing that weirds me out about a lot of parasocial crushes is that they feel like fantasies about consuming me as an object, or about what I could do for the other person, rather than a recognition of a mutual vibe we might have.

I’ve had enough relationships with people who saw me as a concept rather than a person, I don’t really need any more of them.

Also if anyone is reading this thread and getting ideas: feels worth saying I am *not* interested in starting new relationships with men, period.

I have enough men in my life already, the men I want intimacy with have already been grandfathered in, men, please do not tell me about your crushes on me unless you are Winston Duke.