friend crushes

I am not going to have crushes on boys anymore because it's really painful, awkward and embarrassing, for my boyfriend, who I fabricated to make my crushes jealous. Crushes on boys just take up an unwarranted amount of my energy that should be focused on comedy and writing. So I'm over it. I have, however, recently developed this ability to have weird platonic friend crushes on girls I want to be friends with. Is that normal? Like I'll meet a really cool girl and be like "holy crap she's so fricking awesome, how many days do I have to wait before I call her? I don't want to seem needy. How many days do I have to wait before I give her this best friends forever heart necklace that is split in two so we can each have half?"

Sidenote, those necklaces were super popular in 5th grade so I got one and tried to give it to a girl and she did not want to be one half of a best friendship with me. My mom was like, just wear both necklaces, and that is how sadness starts.

Recently I was in New York and there's this girl who I had previously thought was cool. I got to spend an extra half hour talking to her and she was so amazingly kind and genuine and friendly and down to earth and awesome that I was overwhelmed with a platonic friend crush. How do you ask someone to be your friend? In grade school it's so easy. "Hey you're a kid, let's be friends!" When you're in high school it's like "I hate everything, do you hate everything? Hooray let's hate everything together!" When you're in college it's like "I'm drunk... Hi." How do you make friends as an adult? How do you ask someone to hang out as a friend? Maybe it's still the possible to form close personal bonds and I'm just too much of a scaredy cat pussey to do that. I don't know how to make friends anymore. I come across as desperate, needy, eager, retarded, emotionally unstable, and/or bitchy. Like yeah, I'm introverted, and that's okay. But do I need to be the kid who laughs loudly about holocaust jokes when everyone else is quiet? Why can't I just be shy and quiet, instead of the kid who mutters rapidly about suicide in a squeaky annoying voice? Who the heck wants to be friends with that?

Friend crushes are even harder than romantic crushes because you can't just start making out with someone to make them like you platonically. I've done that on dates before. "Well I guess we ran out of shit to talk about, let's do some liplocking." I guess there's a tip for daters out there, if you want to make out, fake poor conversational chemistry.

In Boston I had a slightly similar situation watching a comic. I was like "holy shit she's so hilarious and cool! I want to be her best friend!" After the show of course I overcomplimented her, shuffled awkwardly, put my foot in my mouth, acted retarded, and then stumbled away. At a comedy conference a writer said the best way to network is to just be friendly and nice and the person everyone likes at the party. That would totally get in the way of my saying stupid things and then running away to be alone and eat ice cream and hate myself in private. I'm introverted. I like people, but they exhaust the hell out of me. And I know there are people who would probably be willing to watch a movie or hang out and talk with me, but I do stand up every night and when I get a chance to be alone I revel in my alone time. And when I do get to get coffee with a girl, I feel like I'm interviewing her. I'm really awkward at smalltalk and the paperwork is ridiculous. Friend dates can be as uncomfortable as romantic dates. Just because you memorize someone's facebook profile doesn't mean you have any sort of preexisting report.

Making a new friend is a lot like going to a super amazing fun party. I hide in the bathroom throwing up to stave off crippling panic attacks.

You know you're lonely when you write friend pick up lines. Here's some I wrote! How do you like your eggs in the morning? I was just hoping we had something in common because I'm desperate to relate to someone. Did it hurt when you fell from the nondenominational afterlife nirvana-esque scenario? Please hang out with me.