Why The Reverse Pretend Crush Is Not A Viable Life Strategy:

A Warning
by JSK

I’m not going to tell you about the many, all too obvious, reasons that the Reverse Pretend Crush (RPC) is not a good idea. I won’t waste your time pontificating about exactly how Reverse Pretend Crush selection might work (If you are willing to entertain that Person X has an RPC on you, what does that mean? Why Person X and not Person C? And, most of all, where my little narcissistic poet-of-a-brain goes, why not me?) It’s hardly even worth mentioning that the RPC seems like a way to protect yourself from the slings and arrows of outrageous real-crushdom. Like you’re caught forever in a Family Circus cartoon where Not Me is running around breaking things so Billy doesn’t have to take responsibility.

“David, who had his heart broken again?”

“Not me.”

(Not Me slouches in the corner of the frame, crying little ghostly tears and eating a stack of little ghostly Skor bars.)

It’s just pretend. But you see, from this word we can make rend, meaning to tear apart but we also can find tend, which is not only to care for, but also to give attention to. In pretending, Self-Protecting David Grover is able to simultaneously give attention to another yet also remove himself away from the commitment and possible rejection¹ that the RC or RRC (Real Crush or Reverse Real Crush) might entail.

Additionally, it is not worth my time or effort to discuss how unfair this using-another-as-a-wacky-self-motivational-tool set-up is to the RPC. What if one begins to develop an RC on Irresistible David Grover but later come to find out all those J.Crew catalog-worthy outfits were not really to impress her, but were merely to pretend impress her. Tears, lots and lots of tears. And that’s why we’re not going to talk about that, there’s no crying in RPC-land.

Instead, what we need to focus on is the possibility of the RPC being infected during the up-coming zombie epidemic. Once zombified, the RPC will think back to Luscious-Locks David Grover and start to get very hungry. And let’s not forget all the witty things the RPC will remember Banter-King David Grover having said. The RPC will not care if it was only for pretendsies. The only thing the RPC will think of is David Grover’s brain and her mouth will begin to salivate. Now, all I’m saying, is that this is an issue that needs to be considered. And you can’t say you haven’t been warned. If the Way of the Reverse Pretend Crush is continued, I, for one, will not offer my assistance should said zombie epidemic come to pass, as you have brought this on yourself. If you insist on having RPCs, you’re on your own, Tasty-Cerebellum David Grover.


¹ But seriously, who could reject Sweater-Shoe-Coordinated David Grover?