A Young Woman’s “Crush”
For A Young Man
| M |
any young women come to me to ask if I could know whether the young men they have a “crush” on also like them. They ask further what to do since women are not suppose to court men. While some people might consider these questions as not important or trivial for those who seriously study spiritual matters. I disagree. For the student or the teacher of Spiritual Path, all kinds of relationships between people are important. Relationships between parents and children, between brothers/sisters, between husbands and wives, between friend, between lovers, between neighbors, between co-workers, between the citizens and the government, etc. are all important. Furthermore, for a teacher of Spiritual Path, such simple inquiries could be deepened to discuss other serious matters related to the simple questions. I wish to share one such typical story of a young college student who asked me about her crush.
One early afternoon, a charming former student of mine, approached and asked me if she could have an appointment with me if she could have an appointment with me regarding a personal problem. As I did not have anything to do at that time, I told her we could talk right then and thereat the office. After sitting down and taking a few breaths, she said, “Sir, I feel a bit uneasy asking this question. You might not find this important but even then, I hope you could still help me.”
I smiled a little and said, “If this matter is important to you, then I would gladly help you if I can.”
She took a few breaths again and said, “You see sir, I have this crush, this deep liking for a schoolmate for quite sometime now. I know it is wrong for a woman to court a man. I don’t know what to do. Furthermore, can you find out if this man also likes me. Some classmates of mine tell me you can read other people’s minds.”
I gave her a big smile and replied, “Well, first of all, thank you for trusting me with your secret. Let me first tell you that it is not wrong for a person to show his/her love for someone. In fact, the general rule is that we should show our love foe the people we care for. For instance, we should show our love for our good parents. We should tell them that we love them, that we are thankful for the many good things they have done to us. Furthermore, we should show our love in concrete ways like helping them in household work, giving them a few things they like once in a while like giving them their favorite fruit, candy food, or reminding them of their favorite TV program or movie. We should show our love for our own good brothers/sisters, for our good friends and other good people we care. So, it is right for you to show your deep liking, your crush for this schoolmate of yours, assuming of course that he is a good person worthy of your care and concern. However, since it is “not socially acceptable” to use a correct term for your problem, for a woman to court a man, you have to adjust your way of showing to your crush that you like him. In other words, it is right to your crush that you like him but because our culture does not permit you to court him, you have to show it in an indirect way.”
“What sort of indirect ways can I show him that I care for him?” she asked.
“Well, you can simply be friendly with him. Smile sweetly when you see him, talk nicely to him, share some candies or food with him, ask him to help you in subjects you find quite hard, ask him about his studies, ask him about any problem he has and how can you possibly be of help to him, etc. Make him feel you like his company.”
She smiled and nodded. Then she asked, “Can you find out now whether he also has a crush on me or not?”
“Consider that as your homework. If I did all your homework, you will not learn much. Try to find out first how he responds to your indirect ways of showing that you like him. If after sometime, you are having difficulties with this “homework”, you can see me again and I will find out what he is thinking. The point is that you should first try to solve the homework on your own before you seek my help. That is the right way of approaching any problem in life. You should first try to analyze it and solve it on your own before seeking help from others.”
She kept quiet for a while. She looked a bit disappointed that I did not immediately answer her need to know whether the man also like her or not. A little bit later, she smiled again, thanked me and said she will
“He’s intelligent, neat and quite good looking.”
“Those are very good qualities of a man. It is normal for you to have a crush on him. I guess some of your schoolmates also have a crush on him. Is he still “available”, I mean does he have a girlfriend or not?”
“I already checked that. He is now “available”. He broke up with his girlfriend some months ago.”
“So, you have done some homework on him. You know, it is also my duty to give you some advice in relation to your problem. Let me ask you this - between intelligence, looks, social status and character, which do you think is the most important quality among the four?”
“Character is the most important,” she immediately replied.
“That is easy to say. But, when I asked you earlier why you liked him, you did not mention anything about his character. You see, while it is easy to say that character is the most important quality of a person, many people tend to forget it because our present society wrongly teaches us the opposite.
The mass media focuses on exalting people with good looks, with high social status and with high intelligence. People are taught to look up to beautiful and handsome stars in the entertainment industry, to top government officials and big business leaders, to people with high academic credentials. And yet, we know that many actors and actresses have wrong moral values indulging in immoral sex, drugs, drink too much alcohol, using other so they could get breaks and/or advance their careers, etc. We know that many top government officials cheat and lie, that many of them are corrupt. Many big business leaders are greedy with money and as a result many workers suffer along with the general public. Many of those bright, highly educated people are egoistic, intellectually arrogant. People are not taught to consider first and foremost the character of a person before looking up to them. Indeed, very seldom does the media exalts people on the basis of good character.
How often do you hear people talk about somebody being a good father/mother, a good husband/wife, a good boyfriend/girlfriend, a good brother/sister, a good friend? How often do you hear people say that I look up to this person because he/she is a good parent, a good husband/wife, a good boyfriend/girlfriend, a good brother/sister, a good sister, a good friend, … because he is a real good man/woman. Very seldom. Oftentimes, you hear people talk about somebody and look up to him/her because that somebody is very rich or very powerful, or very intelligent. That is why you had different answers when you earlier disregarded character as an important quality of a person and then later considered character as the most important.
Oftentimes, people enter into a relationship on the basis of physical attraction or intellectual attraction or “status attraction.” Of course, there is nothing wrong with such attractions per se. It is perfectly natural and normal to be attracted to beautiful or handsome people or to intelligent people or to persons with good status in life. But the point is that these kinds of attractions should be secondary. Your primary consideration in choosing the man you will love should be his character.
Remember this: If a person has a bad character, everything that he has- his money, his looks, his intelligence, etc., he will use this qualities and things in a bad, wrong way. He will use his money to brag, to show off, to have “a good time” with women forced by poverty and/or bitter experience to sell themselves. If he has good looks, he will use his good looks to also brag, to attract women and play with them as sex objects. If he has high intelligence, he will also brag about it and he will use it for selfish reasons like being obsessed with accumulating more riches and/or power with little care and concern for others, especially the less fortunate. He will even use his intelligence to fool people, including “playing” with women like you.
A person with a good character, everything that he has - his money, his looks, his intelligence, etc., he will use these qualities and things in a good, right way. He will spend money wisely. He will respect women exactly like his respect for his mother and sister. He will use his intelligence to make himself more productive and to help others.”
She looked serious, trying to reflect on what I had said. Then she argued, “Well, what you said is clear enough. But, there is no perfect person. Every person had bad and good qualities. There is no person with a perfectly good character nor a person with a completely bad character.”
‘That is true. In this world, if you divide people on the basis of character, you can divide them into two - those who are bad and those who are good. Then, as you have observed, you can divide those who are good into two - those who are very good and those who are quite good. By quite good, I mean people with some good and some bad qualities but their good qualities outweigh their bad qualities. Likewise, you can divide those who are bad onto two - those who are very bad and those who are quite bad. By quite bad I mean people with both good and bad qualities but their bad qualities outweigh their good qualities. Most people are those between very good and very bad, i.e., most people belong to the quite good and the quite bad. There are very few very good people and very bad people.
Those who are quite good, you will have some problems with them because they have some bad qualities. Quite good people can change for the worse and become quite bad particularly in our time now when there are so many bad influences from the social environment. Still, the general tendency of quite good people is to improve themselves, to become better persons as they mature more. Thus, you have good chances of being happy with such people as the years move on.
Those who are very bad, they will do much harm to you physically, emotionally, mentally and morally. The chances of these people changing towards being good is very small. It would take an extraordinary experience or an extraordinary person whom they respect to change them. You should avoid this kind of people.
Those who are quite bad, you will have many problems with them. While there is a fair chance for these quite bad people to change for the better and become quite good, the general tendency of such quite bad people is to become worse so now when there are so many bad influences further pulling him down. You should be careful with such people.
Well then, good luck to your attempts to become closer to your crush. If I may repeat my advice, know more about his character first before becoming closer to him, before trusting him. Just look for me again here anytime you want to consult me with your “homework.”
She gave me a big smile and said, “Thank you very much for the advice. Your ideas sound simple but they are interesting. I will remember them.”
“Many truths are really very simple. However, many people cannot see it or find it complicated because of their wrong ideas and values in life.. So, find time to regularly check your ideas and values. If you have the right ideas and values in life, you will find the right person to love. Then, you will be happy. If you have the wrong ideas and values in life, you will get involved with the wrong person. Then your life will be full of troubles.”
She nodded and then gave me a respectful smile. She thanked me again, looked at her watch and hurriedly left for her next class.
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