The jury seems to be out. Some people say, yes of course oldies can have crushes. We haven't become so stony-hearted and emotionally tepid that such reactions are no longer possible.
But others maintain that oldies are much too savvy for such flights of fancy, much too level-headed. We see people exactly as they are and not through rose-tinted spectacles.
I was never a crush-prone individual, so I can't really say one way or the other. I think crushes have to involve idealising the other person, and I was never one for idealising people. I can only recall two serious crushes in my lifetime, and the second one was extremely fleeting.
The first was a server at a London restaurant I used to lunch at every day - The Stockpot near Trafalgar Square. In my late twenties at the time, I was smitten by her distinctive way of walking and her enormous self-confidence. I couldn't stop thinking about her. For months on end I kept telling myself I should ask her out but somehow never had the nerve.
The second was a woman who was interested in buying our previous house, when I was 62. I can't begin to explain my extraordinary reaction. There was something about her that totally threw me. I can only describe it as electrifying. She turned me to jelly so completely I could barely maintain a conversation.
However, that crush lasted about ten minutes because I never saw her again. It wasn't so much a crush as a helpless emotional meltdown.
But some people swear they've had constant crushes throughout their lives, even into their sixties and seventies. Can that really be true?
