You’re at a bar (or a party, since you’re too young to drink alcohol). You’re standing next to the punch bowl with or without your friends. Everything is going normal, that is until you see… them. The boy or girl of your dreams.

Your cheeks glow tomato red. Butterflies flutter in your stomach. A lump gets lodged in your throat. As time slows down, the person of your interest glows with a heavenly radiance and you can’t believe that such an amazing person exists. Immediately, you declare that person as your dream, your obsession, your crush.

Are those really the emotions you get when you have one, though?

Urban Dictionary defines a “crush” as “a burning desire to be with someone who you find very attractive and extremely special”. And from what I’ve seen in TV shows and movies, a crush takes over your social, personal, and education life like an addiction. You daydream constantly about this one person taking you on dates or proposing to you, no matter how much it affects your grades or friendships. And whenever you do see your crush, you screech like a raven and search for a place to hide as meekness overwhelms you. But to me, this form of romantic interest does not exhibit itself in this manner. Rather when I see my crush, I tend to still feel normal, instead of having butterflies in my stomach and romantic reveries.

Perhaps this is because of how I regard my crushes. I don’t care to think about them every second of every day because I have more important things to focus on. Also, when I think about them or see them I don’t usually freak out. I always approach them calmly and hang out with them at ease. But what sets it apart as a romantic crush rather than a friendship crush is that I want to know more about the person in order to find out if they’ll be a good boyfriend. Usually, I have no care about their looks at all, as I’m more concerned with knowing their personality and interests. But is this really a crush?

A part of myself wonders if my crushes are actually people I want to be friends with, and my hormones shape my thinking to believe that I actually have a crush on them. I also wonder if my friendships with boys are really supposed to just be friendships with boys, not an actual romantic bond. After all, if I really did have a crush on them, wouldn’t I be freaking out over them, obsessing about their looks and their social media pages instead of treating them with relaxed admiration?

It is a weird thing to be insecure about, but I sometimes worry that I don’t have crushes “right”. That is, my romantic interest in someone is actually just my overwhelming hormones and loneliness pushing me to talk to someone new. Or even worse, I do have a crush, but I just don’t show my romantic interest because I’m a cold heartless monster. But you can argue that a “crush” can also be defined as “a chemical reaction of endorphins and other neurochemicals sent to the brain”. And in that case, then perhaps I did really have a crush. But, I just reacted to my emotions and feelings differently.

Love displays itself in different ways to different people, romantic feelings included. There isn’t an official guidebook or definition to what a romantic interest is, so why beat yourself up for not falling in love the same way others do? Just because I don’t go insane for a guy doesn’t mean I’m apathetic or have a hormonal imbalance, I just react differently. I may not have a crush in a typical sense, but I still love and I still fall in love.