We all get crushes. I have one right now. Actually, three. They are fun. They give you something to think about when the work, not work, money, reality, whatever cock blocks your happy place. I am mostly oblivious to crushes on me. I grew up in a very small town with three sisters and didn't stand a chance in hell in learning the social skills dance. I get it that if you flash a boob, someone may take delight in the action, but a real crush? Nah. I just don't see them because I'm too busy not making eye contact with men using the magic of not wearing glasses. Which is why when I am bitching about getting too much attention, it goes way past being the subject of mild one-sided flirtation.
In stand up, my low self esteem probably has protected me. I avoid eye contact and hide off stage. You can't hit on me if you can't catch me. I'm also pretty intimidating as a character, a firm believer in controlling the room and too much information. I remember an old comedy friend saying to me, "If someone has a crush on onstage me, they seriously need some help." I expose a lot of foibles, some real, some for the sake of the joke. And when I go to the car by myself in the empty parking lot at night, I pray that I am not punishable for a sin that some wing nut has determined from in between the lines of my act that I didn't intend to write. Someone they hate because I am not a man and they don't get my freedom of opinion. Or they just see a woman who will be walking alone at night, an easy crime mark. The parking spot is always in a place that I can get to fast and I do the best that I can to get in without fighting the lock.
Comedy has become a business that requires a internet presence. I put out blurbs about shows without the intention of luring audience as much as keeping me visible to other bookers. The more you post, the more you are in their consciousness. Sometimes this backfires and too much information is released into eyes you didn't intend to see it. Block interlopers someone suggests and if you know who they are, this is great. And sometimes it is better that they have a little information to satisfy curiosity than going full bore google and showing up in front of your house where your kid lives.
Someone has a crush on me that crosses the line of a crush. I try to avoid him. When I see him in real life, it is like a scene out of Pepe LePu and his damned cat. He sits down, I look panicked and switch to another seat. He tries to sit next to me again, I repeat action until I land in a place that cannot sit. No touching. I'm too quick and it isn't a dirty old man groping thing. It's a 7 foot wall of needy. We have been doing this at least a year. He tries to start conversations but he goes into places he shouldn't know about or care. It sounds benign enough but the difference is it never stops. No matter how mean I am, how rude, he won't stop following me. He never hears no. He never quits i.m.-ing me, following me both on line and physically. At first it was innocent enough but now it is just disturbing. No. I don't like you. Look at at the fear on my face and the venom in my voice. And not having the ability to hear and consider the needs of another human because you want something scares me.
I am generally good at handling crazy. My specialty used to be diffusing drunks that are never wrong. I know that it is fighting an insane person and there is no reason. They never hear "no" when they don't want to hear it. All sorts of flavors of nuts out there...hell, I ain't claiming sanity myself, look at what I do....but only hearing what you want turns into "give me" and that is a special flavor of person. I don't want to be got. At least by him. So I am mean and then he backs off a little. Until he justifies it in his head again. And then I am mean some more. And I worry how this could possibly ever end. Because if I reject him completely, I may find out just how loose that screw really is.
