Do you ever have a crush on someone who's so ridiculously way out of your league that you're not even taking your own feelings seriously?
What, you think I'm talking about me?
Noooo that would never happen to me. Ever. Like, no. Not in a million years.
As this hasn't happened at all ever to me, I thought a lot about those 'leagues' some people (including me) talk about when talking about a person they like. Leagues, as the different football leagues, for example.
Why do leagues exist? Do they serve some purpose? And which purpose would that be?
I think leagues are there to make a game interesting. If one team is just waaaay better than the other one, it usually doesn't make for an interesting game. It might end in a close result, it might end in a clear one, but usually, from beginning to end it's clear who'll win. Of course there's always the moment of ultimate failure my favourite team regularly achieves, but we're not getting into that.
If a professional team, with players of several million dollars worth, plays against a team that plays as a hobby, that's not gonna be a fun match to see. And that's where leagues come in.
Leagues separate the teams in different layers of skill, of professionality; usually stuff like finances or stadiums play a role too. That way, the good teams play against the good teams on a high level, and the hobby teams play the hobby teams and maybe go get a beer together after the game.
So yes, I think leagues do serve a purpose. Most leagues regularly change, the good ones stay up or go up, the ones who lose go one league down. The games stay interesting.
All of that makes sense (sorta) when talking about sports. It makes a bit less sense when talking about attraction, in my opinion.
Of course there's some people who are more attractive, and some less. That's, of course, a personal, subjective viewpoint, but that doesn't make it any less true. But does that make the whole league thing seem reasonable? Nope.
In sports, there's clear numbers. Win and get points, lose and don't. Get enough points to stay in that league or get one up, or don't. It's an obvious, an objective way of separating teams into leagues. That, quite frankly, doesn't work for feelings.
One of my first realisations about that whole thing was, that I only think about leagues when I'm the one having a crush. I make this person into someone they're not. Because no one is as perfect as my stupid heart, and gullible brain makes my crush seem. Of course the person you like is attractive. You like him/her, after all. Attractive is simply 'having the quality of attracting', and as the person is attracting you, that makes him/her attractive. Simple as that.
That doesn't make him any more 'in my league' though, does it?
I'm gonna go out on a limb here, but I think that leagues do not exist if it comes to attraction, or crushing on someone. You have a crush on a person that seems far too good for you? Have you ever thought that you might be making yourself sound worse than you actually are? That you are putting yourself in 'a league' far below the one you're actually in?
That's a thing a lot of people do, and the cause, I think, to the whole league thing. If you look in the mirror and just straight up hate who you're looking at, that might be your problem. Before you think someone will never like you back, how about you take the Michael Jackson approach and start with the man (or woman, but that's not the lyrics) in the mirror?
Start liking that person, the one in the mirror. And who knows which league you're gonna play in, once you do.
