Who did you get crushes on as a child?

submitted by Depressed from self.Lesbians

Asking because I definitely got crushes on boys as a young child, but obviously those had nothing to do with sexual attraction. I got them right up until puberty and then once puberty hit, I only ever had much more intense and very different crushes on girls. Then, I began to be able to retrospectively spot crushes I'd had on other girls as a child that were of a similar longing intensity, but without a sexual component. But because of those so called crushes during my childhood, I thought I must definitely be bisexual for a long time, even though I've never had a single sexual feeling for a man. Anyone else experience this or is it a strange experience for a lesbian?

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[–]Gearbeta 18 insightful - 1 fun18 insightful - 0 fun19 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Can't say I relate. I got crushes on female characters in video games and female teachers.

[–]hermiona52 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The first crush I was oblivious to was Samantha Carter from tv show 'Stargate SG-1'. The one that made me actually question my orientation was Liara from Mass Effect game trilogy. From there on it was quite a few difficult years of internal turmoil, so this game had a huge impact on my personal life.

Real life crushes (oblivious in primary and secondary school)? All of my science teachers. And especially my math teacher in secondary school. She was so amazing, I stayed up after each class to ask some math questions just to spend more time near her and learned hard to impress her. I was so stupid haha.

[–]Gearbeta 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I had a crush on my elementary school math teacher and Lulu from FFX and Maria from SO3 and my middle school best friend when I was a kid. I still get crushes on video game characters tbh LOL. I'm sad and pathetic lol

[–]hermiona52 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Oh I'm definitely getting Ellie's tattoo from TLOU2. I'm actually saving money for it. Ellie is like an ultimate crush.

[–]It-Do-Be-Like-That 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Just here to say “hell yeah!” to Mass Effect and Liara T’soni! Now in the great words of Shep, “I should go.”

[–]RedditHatesLesbians 15 insightful - 2 fun15 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

I developed crushes on most of my best friends as a child. When I was maybe 8-11 I'd have these short lived but intense friendships with girls who I'd try to court and impress and basically do everything in my power to make them like me. There was one girl in particular who I was very attracted to (but I didn't let myself fully acknowledge how I felt around her and what it meant) and for her birthday I made her a "15 reasons I like you" booklet from scratch. It's so cringey looking back, but I did drawings and made it all pretty with markers then taped it together and actually gave it to her!

There was another girl who I was best friends with for a few years, and we'd share a bed and cuddle all night whenever I slept over. Completely innocently for a while, but the last time it happened we were both around 13 and I was basically painfully in love with her at the time, so that was that.

I can think of maybe 3-4 other female crushes I had before the age of 12, then at 14 I had my first "real" and intense crush on a girl where just looking at her was painful. We dated for a while and ended it as first relationships do, but it took me ages to get over her. The attraction I felt for her was so magnetic, and that's when I realised that I'm definitely a lesbian lol.

Long answer but there we go. I also of course had crushes on fictional characters. I'd read a lot of Jacqueline Wilson and she's recently come out as a lesbian, so there's that. I always had a huge crush on Tracy Beaker from The Dumping Ground TV show.

[–]SailorMoon2020 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'd read a lot of Jacqueline Wilson and she's recently come out as a lesbian, so there's that

Recently? I could have swore she was out back when I was in middle school when she was with that woman and already had two kids with her. Her sexuality was the big motivation behind the book The House You Pass on the Way and that came out in 1997.

Wait. Are we talking of the same woman?

Edit: Looked her up. Not the same woman.

[–]sunzzy 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Before I realised I am attracted to girls all my friends had crushes on boys so I would choose a random one and pretend because I thought eventually I would start liking them. Newsflash, I didn't.

[–]Depressed[S] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I genuinely did like them, I just didn't want to date them. One time as a child I got asked out by a boy I supposedly had a crush on, and I felt really uncomfortable and basically ran away from him lmao. While many girls "dated" at that age, as kids do, and I had boy crushes to choose from, I never felt that inclination and in fact thought that it was rather mature and high-minded of me to not be boy-obsessed like all of my friends. I'd definitely have dated girls in the holding-hands proximity as a child if I knew that was an option, though.

I'm not sure if how I felt could be described as a crush or just really liking them as friends to be honest, lol. But I clocked it as a crush because everyone else was talking about crushes and what I'm describing was the closest thing to it that I recognised.

[–][deleted] 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Anyone else experience this or is it a strange experience for a lesbian?

Lesbians don't have crushes on boys... I'm kind of bewildered by the number of upvotes. I've only ever had crushes on girls. There were boys I could tell were handsome or conventionally attractive but I wasn't attracted to them.

[–]RedditHatesLesbians 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah this is confusing to me, as a kid I definitely went through a prolonged boys have cooties phase lol. No attraction there regardless of age.

[–]plotbunny 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Never had a crush on a boy. I had really intense friendships with girls and many extremely embarrassing teacher crushes.

[–]spirette 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I can relate to that! I feel you on those extremely embarrassing teacher crushes ;) I look back and I cringe. I hope these awesome teachers didn't notice haha

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Oh, they noticed

[–]VioletRemi 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

As a kid I had a crush to a Madonna, and then a crushes were into girls classmates.

[–][deleted] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

i "liked" a couple boys briefly in elementary school, never spoke to either of them, remember thinking one specifically looked like a girl lol. at the same time i had um, a pretty intense fascination w/ older girls & a couple of my teachers. still remember everything abt my art teacher & how devastated i was when she moved away loool

[–]TarshishJupiter 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

  • First crush was at age 7 on a girl in ballet class.
  • Second crush was at age 9 on Peter Pan (every single version including Cathy Rigby and Jeremy Sumpter).
  • Next were on two kids I thought reminded me of Peter Pan at age 10 (one a girl, one a boy).
  • Then came my preoccupation with this boy who was my last male crush (age 11) - so I got stuck with having a crush on him for many years, even when he got ugly (read: male-looking), because I didn't know who else to have a crush on and I just HAD to have a crush on a guy or else I was weird. My friends said this guy looked like a girl, and I never wanted to do anything else but kiss him (and that was probably because I was told I'd enjoy kissing boys if I tried it).
  • My girl crushes, which started adding up: a girl who led a club I was in (I thought "If I was a boy I'd want to marry her"), several girls at school, a few older women, and a few characters from movies like Trinity from the Matrix.

NONE of these had a sexual component, I might add. I kept myself from thinking about people that way until I was 19.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Same. I'm so confused by it too. Crushes on both sexes right up till puberty and then nothing for the guys. I wonder if it's because everyone's sort of (physically anyway) androgynous up until that point? Twilight happened when I was 12 and I honestly couldn't understand my friends obsessing over edward and jacob. I had no idea which team to pick. No attraction to either of them. I think things became more clear when I began experimenting with people (as an adult) and I realised that there was a big difference between how I felt physically with men vs women and romantically too. I genuinely find the masculine aspects of a man's body a turn off and the opposite for feminine ones on a woman. So it's for that reason why I wouldn't call myself bisexual; however I do find it confusing why I could feel some kind of emotional attraction to boys as a kid. I would love an answer.

[–]TarshishJupiter 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I think it's partly because, yes, boys are pretty androgynous up until that age. And also, the sexual aspect of crushes at that point is really missing. As a child, many people develop warm, fluttery feelings about a lot of different people in a non-sexual way, and it doesn't necessarily determine who they're going to be attracted to when they grow up.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

yeah little kids dont even have libidos/sex drives yet so of course your feelings were not sexual.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks :) there are so many people who are like 'I knew I was gay when I was 8' and have never had an amorous feeling towards a male in their life. I couldn't relate so I figured I must be bisexual but that didn't sit right.

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There were class mate crushes since elementary school, that was the same era that I developed a healthy crush on Dolly. When I was in middle school there was Charmayne James, when I met her I went speechless and almost cried..... not a good look for 14 year old me.

[–]yousaythosethings 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You can add me to the list of those who had “crushes” on boys in my youth, well mainly one in elementary school. I liked playing with boys in elementary school. I liked their activities more. But I mainly liked to play with them in groups not one-on-one and I preferred to play with girls mainly one-on-one. There was one boy that I liked when we were in the same classes in elementary school but I mostly forgot about him when we weren’t. He was very smart and in the all of the gifted programs like me. Then when puberty came a switch was flipped. Boys became totally alien to me, and I never liked them again. After puberty I found it extremely difficult and almost impossible to connect with boys/men and for the most part I totally lacked interest in doing so. I don’t even like interacting with them.

As for girls, I was always fixated on girls. I didn’t interpret it as a crush, probably because no one noticed and framed it that way as they do between girls and boys. But there was basically always some girl I was obsessed with. I would think a lot about her looks and how beautiful she was, how cool she was, how I wanted her to notice and like me, and would look for excuses to interact with her. I can basically build out a timeline of my life based on what girl I was fixated on.

None of this pre-puberty stuff involved any sexual attraction or sexual thoughts. It was innocent kid stuff. Compared to kids today, I was really late to learn about sex stuff. And because it took me a while to internalize my thoughts about girls and meanwhile I was feeling nothing for boys and just assuming I would some day, I had no real reason to learn. Also my parents didn’t really parent me and never gave me the birds and the bees talk. So at times I was a very confused raging ball of hormones who didn’t know what to do with that energy.

[–]les4les 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

i had a few crushes on boys, i think mostly boys who i really wanted to be my friends. i was one of those girls who didn't get along very well with other girls but could get along easier with boys, even though boys were definitely less likely to tolerate my hanging out with them. it was a lonely childhood

i also used to find boys cute but only if they were... pretty feminine, lol. i had a few "crushes" on guys who turned out gay

other than that, i had crushes on my best girl friends too, one after the other, i went through a few. also crushed on my female classmates. also crushed on fictional women/girls, i had a huge thing for rue from hunger games when i was like 12, luna lovegood, anna kendrick's pitch perfect character, hahaha

[–]xv_xx 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm very crush-prone. But I always crush on real people, or fictional characters portrayed by humans, never on cartoon or anime characters (with the one exception possibly being Kim Possible...). And I have never, ever crushed on a guy. Closest would be an intellectual obsession I have had with some men (Chris Hemsworth, Barack Obama, Brian Cox, and others) -- but it is entirely non-romantic and DEFINITELY not sexual. I just find them intriguing and the kind of people I would actually love to go have dinner or a few drinks with, but that's about it.

[–]piylot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I never had anything I would have labelled at the time as a crush before puberty, I didn't expect myself to, and didn't have friends that spoke of them at that time either. What is a non sexual crush really? Can you have them as adults too?

[–]MyLongestJourney 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I did not have any crushes.Those did not start until a couple of years into puberty.

[–]Destresse 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Hmm... I had very different feelings for boys and girls when I was a child, I identified some things as a "crush" because I was too smart for my own good and intellectualised everything lol

So I thought I had crushes on boys. Ultimately, I decided who to crush on based on complicated criterias, like: is he well-liked/popular? Would people think highly of me if he likes me? Whose attention would I draw if I got close to him? I did not think about the boy himself for even a second. Nor about what I felt. I also did find some boys good-looking, until they hit puberty and started looking like... well.... boys.

Meanwhile, as a child, I was obsessed with adult women's bodies lol. Nudity scene in TV show? Bam, hypnotized. Partial nudity? Curiosity shooting up to the stars. I loved playing "the man" for a girl friend of mine in kindergarten, but it made me super nervous too. I also asked my mom a lot of embarrassing questions. A lot. It's a curse to remember lol. And never, ever, did I call any of these a crush.

I feel like the widely different answers you get are all because of a definition issue surrounding what each person calls a crush. Following your examples, I'd say I got crushes on boys too. But in actuality, when I think about it, maybe I shouldn't call those crushes.