[ SECRET POST #3792 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3792 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 31 secrets from Secret Submission Post #543.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I just don't understand character "crushes" and I don't know if it's just because people are using the term in a figurative sense and I'm taking it literally or if people are really honest to god feeling about a character tbe same way they'd feel about a real person.

[(Anonymous)]

Most people can tell real people from imaginary ones, but the imaginary ones can dwell in our fantasies and be perfect, where real people, even ones close to our ideal never will be.

[(Anonymous)]

This exactly. It's a fun, escapist fantasy for me. I've had them for years.

[soldatsasha]

I think it's a bit of both?

Some people have much lower 'crush' threshold than other people. They get infatuated much more easily even with real people. Just like sex drive, there's a huge range. So yeah, plenty of people get crushes on fictional characters, especially if those are characters they find very attractive or feel like they understand on some deep level.

But there's also the fact that people use 'crush' to mean different things. I would, for example, never use the word to describe anyone I had serious romantic+sexual feelings toward whether or not a relationship ever developed, bc for me that's more than a crush. For me a crush is 'haha he's pretty cute' or 'haha yeah I get a little flustered when he talks to me'. But other people would use it in the opposite way, to mean someone they DO have real feelings for.

I mean, I guess since people fall in love with fictional characters and marry them on the astral plane, pretend they're having sex with them rather than their real life partner, spend months or years writing fanfic and maintaining fan pages to them, etc. I don't see how character crushes are somehow not understandable?

[(Anonymous)]

I used to get crushes on boys who smiled at me twice in high school so I don't see why this is so weird.

[(Anonymous)]

They're real people? I mean, that's a pretty big difference.

[el_regrs]

But if it's one of those crushes where nothing goes beyond such an interaction, then it's not much different from liking a fictional character. You have no relationship either way (though it is true you'd have a greater chance with a real life crush vs fictional).

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not imaginative enough to pull it off but when the infatuation is that superficial why does it matter how "real" the object is

[(Anonymous)]

They're real, but in effect you've had almost no interaction with them beyond a superficial exchange that lasted two seconds,so they're not necessarily any more known to you than a character in your favorite movie. In fact, you probably know more about the character than you do the personality of the real person. That's often the point of a story, after all. It's meant to get you acquainted with a character as if they were rwal. It's designed to get you to like or at least be interested in the fate of the character, whereas real life doesn't work that way.

[(Anonymous)]

I honestly don't understand why this is a sticking point for you. How does their existence in reality make any difference whatsoever?

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt - Probably because they're drawing a hard line between real vs. fiction without acknowledging the fact that a person can be 100% real, but that doesn't automatically mean you know anything about them that would make a crush more rational.

[(Anonymous)]

The difference being that real people are boring, can betray or abuse you, have bad habits and annoying personality quirks that make dealing with them irritating after a while, and the average a relationship with them will last is two months?

[(Anonymous)]

When I was in middle school, I got fictional crushes on a lot of characters and those crushes elicited the same feelings as the crushes I had on classmates and one really cute math tutor. It's embarrassing to think of it now, but I just chalk it up to hormones and too much shojo manga messing with my brain.

[(Anonymous)]

For me it feels like a real crush but I do know it's not real, it's just fun to fantasize about.

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly.

And sometimes it's not even so much the character itself as it is more appreciating certain qualities in fictional characters that you'd like to find in a real person someday.

Or maybe you just think they look good, or something like that :p.

[(Anonymous)]

I'd say qualities you'd like to find in a real person and beyond, like characters can be your ultimate combination of hot/smart/funny/heroic etc.

Or sometimes it's not even that, you just find something about them that is hot. Like there are fictional crushes I have that I would NEVER want a part of in reality but god it's fun to think about.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Yup, all of this.

I was rewatching the first few eps of The Office (US) the other day, and it got to the point where I announced out loud to no one: "Jim Halpert is my ideal boyfriend. It's not even fair what a perfect boyfriend Jim would be."

Damon Salvatore OTOH? Hot as fuck, but in reality? Oh hell no.

Both dudes very enjoyable to watch, and think about, and drool over, though .

[(Anonymous)]

I think it can be even stronger than feelings for a real person. I'm not saying it's sane.

[(Anonymous)]

I actually agree.

Characters are almost always interesting to an unrealistic degree. Plus, characters are part of narratives, and I think most people's minds are extremely drawn to narratives (in the sense that our minds try to construct narratives for our own experiences in order to understand them), so I think it makes sense that we are attracted to characters, whose lives and personalities genuinely do have a narrative structure to them.