Crush

A friend's son – barely out of his teens - admitted he has a crush on me.

It was evening, and we were sitting outside, in the garden. The cicadas were maddeningly loud, and we could hardly hear ourselves talk, but as it is doubtful that either of us was saying anything of interest, it hardly mattered. My friend went inside to answer the phone, and I was alone with her son. He talked for a while about university, which bored me, and I started watching him, wondering if he was gay. A gross stereotype, I suppose, but there seemed a certain theatricality to the way he spoke, the dramatic expressions he pulled to emphasise a point, and how he waved his hands around like an Italian opera singer, so that I thought his gayness guaranteed.

"I have a crush on you," he said, then continued talking about his classes.
I opened and closed my mouth a few times in what was probably a very fair rendition of a goldfish. Thanks to the shouting cicadas and my lack of attention, I couldn’t be sure I had heard him correctly.
"I'm sorry – what did you say?"
He looked abashed. "Oh, never mind," he said, getting up, and disappeared into the darkening garden.

I was extremely flattered. I told Mrs S. "He was in an accident a few years ago," she said. "He had brain injuries." I thought this rather unkind to me, as the assumption was that only the mentally deficient would find me appealing.

I saw him again in the city yesterday. "Hello Deborah!" he called out, cheerily.
My name is not Deborah. I pointed this out to him. "Oh, I know," he said, with a secret smile.

I don’t feel flattered anymore.