A crush on someone might mean you're missing fulfillment elsewhere. The speaker distinguishes between useful crushes, like on a math class, and obsessive ones that consume your life. Female founders at startup events talk about projects and ideas; her college friends talked mostly about guys. Building something of your own fills the gap.
I don't usually buy into the whole stay single forever kind of spiel for women because I think a lot of it is just performative clickbait. Having a boyfriend isn't embarrassing, period. Having a boyfriend is embarrassing if you don't have a life outside of it. You know, there's always more nuance than just one clickbaity title. But I do love whoever came up with the quote, having crushes means you're not emotionally fulfilled somewhere else. And by that, I'm not talking about having a casual crush. In my life, most of the casual crushes I've had are functional. For example, I will have a crush in math class so I can look forward to going to the lectures. I will have a crush on the airplane for 3 hours so that I don't feel bored. Like, those crushes are healthy because they serve a specific purpose at a specific time. But when you start becoming overly obsessive with someone, or even the concept of having to have someone that you're obsessed with at all times, like, that is so destructive for women. The moment I realized this was when I started my business in college, and I started going to more startup events and talking to more female founders, and I realized that they're never talking about men. They're talking about what they're working on, or what news article they saw, or what event they're going to on the weekends, like There's so many other things that fulfill their time and their mindshare versus when I'm at school, most of my girlfriends would talk about guys, and whenever we go out, it's always about the guys. That's because if you're at school and not working on anything else, like, you're not emotionally fulfilled. Like, you need someone to fill that gap. And I'm not above it. I used to be like that too until I started my own business, and I realized that life could be so much more interesting. If you have extra energy and time, invest that into yourself. I think this should be the default for women in their early 20s.
