She's So Cool, So Smart, So Beautiful: Must Be a Girl Crush

New York Times ^ | August 11, 2005 | STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM

[nickcarraway]

THE woman's long black hair whipped across her pale face as she danced to punk rock at the bar. She seemed to be the life of the party. Little did she know that she was igniting a girl crush. Susan Buice was watching, and she was smitten.

Ms. Buice, 26, and the dancer (actually a clothing designer) happen to live in the same Brooklyn apartment building, so Ms. Buice, a filmmaker, was later able to soak up many other aspects of her neighbor's gritty yet feminine style: her layered gold necklaces; her fitted jackets; her dark, oversize sunglasses; and her Christian Dior perfume.

"I'm immediately nervous around her," Ms Buice said. "I stammer around her, and it's definitely because I think she's supercool."

Ms. Buice, who lives with her boyfriend, calls her attraction a girl crush, a phrase that many women in their 20's and 30's use in conversation, post on blogs and read in magazines. It refers to that fervent infatuation that one heterosexual woman develops for another woman who may seem impossibly sophisticated, gifted, beautiful or accomplished. And while a girl crush is, by its informal definition, not sexual in nature, the feelings that it triggers - excitement, nervousness, a sense of novelty - are very much like those that accompany a new romance.

This is not a new phenomenon. Women, especially young women, have always had such feelings of adoration for each other. Social scientists suspect such emotions are part of women's nature, feelings that evolution may have favored because they helped women bond with one another and work cooperatively. What's new is the current generation's willingness to express their ardor frankly.

"Historically, talking about these kinds of feelings has gone in and out of fashion,"

[LibFreeOrDie]

Another episode from the New York Times' continuing series of "Lifestyles of the Shallow and Stupid NY Liberal Female"...

[Uncle Joe Cannon]

Sometimes I think we're due for another great flood.

[JRios1968]

Sometimes I think we're due for another great flood.

Good time to be a boat salesman...

[Cincinatus' Wife]

......helped women bond with one another and work cooperatively.....

Yeah, well, let the same man be their mutual object of attention and all that will fly out the window.

[kb2614]

This is some of the most insipid drivel I've ever seen. BARF!

[AntiGuv]

Well, then, I would alert your attention to Genesis 8:21.

And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

-- Genesis 8:21, KJV

[Jaysun]

What a steaming pile.

[Shawndell Green]

LOL! Well said!

[ncountylee]

The reason to put this particular string of words together is...what? Because it's there?

[Petronius]

Penthouse chronicled this phenomenon far better than this article. Sometimes a picture is worth far more than a thousand words.

Someone at work told me there's stuff like that on the internet, but I don't believe him.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Social scientists suspect such emotions are part of women's nature, feelings that evolution may have favored because they helped women bond with one another and work cooperatively.

What? A NY Times reporter suggesting that women might be genetically different in their emotions from men?

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Sometimes I think we're due for another great flood.

Well, there is a biblical precedent of great love and friendship between two women, in the story of Ruth.

Ruth pledged to Naomi: "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me"

[Ajnin]

BWAHAHAHA!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Thanks!

I thought it had merit.

[SamAdams76]

Men must be very careful these days when looking for a wife. If your girlfriend is obsessed with such nonsense as other women in dark, oversized sunglasses, run far, far, away.
The end result is not worth it.

[The Red Zone]

That's so old fashioned, today they would share and share alike.

[OpusatFR]

"What's new is the current generation's willingness to express their ardor frankly."

Oh, fi on that. Eleanor Franklin and women of her age, my mother included, wrote gushy, mushy letters and said adoring things about their women friends to each other.

The Victorian women were the absolute masters of gushy feminine admiration.

Mother was not Victorian, but she certainly was Edwardian with all the mush included.

[raybbr]

Stephanie Rosenbloom.

Related:

I can sympathize with Stephanie Rosenbloom, I can. In case you don’t read The New York Times, she has complained that the only image of her on the Internet was nine years old, bohemian, brunette and unflattering, and it followed her around like a Ghost of Fashion Unconsciousness Past. She mentioned that she was now a blonde who wore stiletto heels. Presumably, her current incarnation is much more attractive. However, she hasn’t yet posted a new picture of herself online, so we have to take her word for it. Yyyeah. Might want to fix that, Steph.

[Ajnin]

I laugh every time I look at it. There's just something so human about that picture.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

LOL

Humor is rooted in reality.

[Past Your Eyes]

So, you're saying that Ruth and Naomi may have been the first "girl crush" situation? Good grief, Charlie Brown.
":^(

[jws3sticks]

[RippleFire]

Sheesh. You can't make this stuff up.

[ARCADIA]

They actually think this trash helps sell their paper? So boring! I suspect the author, if not a homosexual, is active in advancing the homosexual agenda.

Was this the same guy who coined the word "metrosexual"? What a waste of pulp.

[Desdemona]

What a steaming pile.

Why? As a female, I find it to be very true. And very sad.

[TalBlack]

"Another episode from the New York Times' continuing series of "Lifestyles of the Shallow and Stupid..."

Tell me about it! This sort of emotion is appropriate to the 9 to 15yr age group. These "adults" are seriously emotionally retarded.

[bethelgrad]

Ok, fire then!

[Junior]

Well, you can tell who actually read the article and understood it vice the folks who had a knee-jerk reaction at the headline or lead.

[Aloysius88]

"Social scientists suspect such emotions are part of women's nature, feelings that evolution may have favored because they helped women bond with one another and work cooperatively."

Evolution of emotion? Really? I wonder what the genetic structure of that looks like? Nice "just-so story" about the evolutionary advantages. The evolution of cooperation.

[seemoAR]

Also, Maybe because there are at least 10 righteous people still left. Genesis 18:32

[goldstategop]

Must be an ad for that Lifetime show with beautiful lesbians...

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[HitmanLV]

"I'm immediately nervous around her," Ms Buice said. "I stammer around her, and it's definitely because I think she's supercool."

Yep, that sounds very adult.

[Euro-American Scum]

Insipid, self-absored, Lesbo-American twit bump for later.

[hinckley buzzard]

Social scientists suspect such emotions are part of women's nature, feelings that evolution may have favored because they helped women bond with one another and work cooperatively.

What? A NY Times reporter suggesting that women might be genetically different in their emotions from men?

In the crapola of leftwing liturgy, "bonding" and "cooperation" are considered high virtues. Therefore it is permissible and even desirable to explain why they distinguish womyn from those eeeevil men.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Good analysis, IMO. But we don't dare suggest that men and women's intelligence might vary in any way!

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Well, no. But I just wanted to point out a touching Bible story about a wonderful friendship among two women.

[kittymyrib]

That you should even consider debasing the beautiful story of Ruth and Naomi with this tripe of a story from the NYT, makes me question your brain functions. Ruth was such a good example of devotion to her elderly mother-in-law that, though she had been a heathen Moabitess, she later married Boaz, thus becoming an ancestor of the Savior. Watch your mouth.

[Foxfire4]

Another episode from the New York Times' continuing series of "Lifestyles of the Shallow and Stupid NY Liberal Female"...

Not necessarily. I'm neither stupid nor liberal, and I had a few nonsexual "crushes" like that in my late teens and early twenties. A good friend's younger sister seems to have had one on me when she was in her early twenties. I just don't think they're important enough to warrant newspaper coverage. But it's an interesting phenomenon IMO - on reflection, I'd say that it's a last ditch "eek, I'm almost a grownup!" check for role models.

Now what it says that New York women are still looking for role models in their thirties is another matter altogether.

[Ichneumon]

["Social scientists suspect such emotions are part of women's nature, feelings that evolution may have favored because they helped women bond with one another and work cooperatively."]

Evolution of emotion?

Yes.

Really?

Yes, really.

I wonder what the genetic structure of that looks like?

The same as the genetic structure of other traits: sequences of nucleotides. For example:

Entrez pubmed Results

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[Finalapproach29er]

A brief tidal wave for NYC, and an earthquake for So.Cal.?


I think God promised no more "great floods".

[longtermmemmory]

Gee a "gay" newspaper taking innocent hero worship and turning it into a homosexual wet fantasy.

NYT? so I was right, it IS from a "gay" newspaper.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

I was not debasing the story. It is one of my favorites. You'll note I refer to it as a touching story of a wonderful friendship.

But hey, you sound like a fun FReeper. Tell me, what was it like during time of the Puritans? Were you one of the people who locked people into the stocks for being insufficiently pious?

[Sabatier]

Sounds like somebody was having trouble coming up with original material for a column. This NYT story looks like a retread of a student paper editorial titled "Just a Little Girl Crush", written in 2003: "She caused me to stop in my tracks. Rather than progressing up the road to the next store, I stood still on the corner and waited until she was out of sight. Call it what you will: Envy, jealously or hatred. I call it a girl crush." Etc.

Read the 2003 article here.

[festus]

Sometimes I think we're due for another great flood.

Aint the irony of them pickin the rainbow for the twink symbol deep ?

I don't think a flood though I think a mongol horde is whats in store. Like the Assyrians of OT times.

[fish hawk]

I didn't know that Micky Spillane was now writing for the NYSlimes.

[Jaysun]

Why? As a female, I find it to be very true. And very sad.

This article promotes lesbianism. To admire someone or notice their charisma is normal - but that's where the line is drawn.