Crushes are fun, but we romanticize the person into someone they’re not.

This. So much this. I fell in this trap a few times and even though I overcame the fear of asking out and the other side accepted and we dated a few times, eventually my disappointment with the difference between what I imagined the person would be vs how the person actually is would kick in and I would start blaming the other person and/or start criticizing the other person.

I now realize that I was trying to force the other person into my personal view of “how that person should be” and that was very unfair to them but I didn’t realize what I was doing while doing it.