When it comes to girlhood crushes, I am what some may call a strange bird.
Sure, I went through a phrase of thinking Michael J. Fox was cute, and I had a sticker of Kirk Cameron in my Trapper Keeper, but what really caught my attention with them was the fact that my older sister and her friends thought they were attractive. It wasn’t until I made it to middle school that I really settled on my one true love: Roger Daltrey.
For the uninitiated, Roger Daltrey is the curly-haired lead singer of The Who (you know, the band that did all the theme songs for those CSI shows), and, at the age of 67, one of only two surviving members of the original band. He’s gorgeous, British, and has an incredibly sexy voice. From the moment I first saw a concert performance of The Who from back in the ’70s (yes, this was the sort of stuff I watched as a young teenager in the 1990s–I told you I was a strange bird), I was hooked on him. In those old performances, and to this day, he sings passionately, twirls his microphone by the cord, and owns the stage with the sort of swagger you can only pull off if you’re as incredible as he is. In the band’s heyday, he also wore tight Levis and not much of a shirt, almost without fail. Hello, sexual awakening! The very sight of it all makes me want to squeal with delight.
My crush on him is to this day undying, unwavering, and, to most people, pretty ridiculous. Forget the teenage idols, my first fantasies involved a man who was 37 years older than I am. On one hand, I can understand how some might find it silly, or strange. On the other, though, I have a hard time understanding how anyone could possibly blame me.
One of the greatest disappointments in my life is knowing full well that Roger Daltrey and I will probably never meet. These days, tickets for a meet-and-greet with him run around $575, and have to be bought in pairs. Needless to say, the amount of money I have in my bank account pales in comparison to the amount of love I have for him in my heart, and those tickets are far beyond my reach. I’ve entertained the possibility of concocting some kind of crazy scheme to bring the two of us together, but so far I haven’t come up with an idea that seems feasible. If I were just able to meet him, shake his hand, and get a picture, I would die happy.
As strange as my crush may be, I know I can’t be the only one out there who pines after someone non-traditional. Prove me right–did you fall for someone unexpected? I want to hear all about your crushes in the comments!
5 replies on “First Crush, Forever Crush”
I’ve had an undying love for Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day since I was in my early teens (and yes, Green Day is STILL my favorite band well over a decade after I discovered them.) Not super traditional, but not too out there.
That honor would have to go to Raistlin Majere, of the Dragonlance series. Morally questionable from the outset (and kind of evil, although still kind of sympathetic, by the end of two trilogies) weak, golden-skinned who sees EVERYTHING as dead and dying through his eyes after a magical ordeal, but also pretty much the most powerful wizard EVAR, sarcastic, sympathetic, and easily one of the best characters in the series. I loved him. I’ve had many other crushes on fictional book characters, but that one was the strongest, the most enduring, and probably the weirdest too.
As a teenager, I used to have a crush on Anthony Hopkins, and not just any Anthony Hopkins, Hannibal Lecter Anthony Hopkins. Oh, and newscaster Peter Jennings. I do love me some older men …
Yes, what is it about older men? They just have that certain je ne sais quoi, I suppose.
As a kid, I had crushes on famous men who were circling around my dad’s age. I had crushes on Gary Sinise and Jeff Goldblum, and my first celebrity crush was on Elias Koteas when he was Casey Jones in the Ninja Turtles movie. I had some age-appropriate crushes (Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Brad Renfro, Elijah Wood – more for his acting than his looks), but I liked much older men who seemed rugged and jaded and smart.
I once had a sex dream where Penn Jillette was my lover. He doesn’t do anything for me, and I don’t know why he was there, but there he was.
Wow, Penn Jillette? I would definitely have had him down for one of the most unlikely people to appear in a sex dream. Clearly I’d have been wrong. Did it make you see him in a whole new light?