Disillusioned Crushes

When I was a teenager I had crushes on several rock musicians. Who didn’t have a crush on a musician, actor, or other celebrity when they were young? You imagined how great life would be. He was everything you were looking for in a man – romantic, attentive, caring.

I had a big reality check several years ago about my teenage celebrity crushes – they definitely weren’t as great as I once thought.

I was reading Slash’s biography (guitarist for Guns N’ Roses for those of you who didn’t already know) and in a passage he was talking about the early days of the band when a few of them were living in a freight container. They were having a party and there was a girl they were taking turns with. GROSS!!!!!!

Though Slash was not one of my crushes, I did have a crush on another GN’R member. Upon reading that, not only did my stomach turn, but it dawned on me how dirty many of these rock stars are. They have had women upon women throwing themselves at them for years. I wonder if they can even guess the number of women they have been with. Nope, a history like that is definitely not for me.

Then I started watching the Bret Michaels (lead singer of Poison) reality show, Life As I Know It. I will admit having a huge crush on Bret Michaels as a teenager. I’m watching that show thinking that his partner has all the same problems as I do with my husband, plus some. Reality check #2: they are still men and do all those men things – probably with additional ones thrown in because they have the money to do crazy things.

My final reality check was thanks to Facebook.

Nuno Bettencourt (guitarist extraordinaire from Extreme). I’m going to admit to still crushing on him...don’t tell my husband. I follow him via Facebook, which would have blown me away when I was a teenager. He’s a fan of the selfie, which is okay, who doesn’t want to look at pictures of him.

Sorry, getting off topic...

Musicians are a little self-appreciating. Okay, let’s call it like it is, many are divas to some degree. I’m sorry, there’s only room for one diva in my world, which was me until my daughters were born. 

Sorry Nuno, I will still follow you though.

The moral of my story, they may be nice to look at, but guess what – they aren’t as great as we imagine them to be.

It reminds me of a quote from High Fidelity (great book and movie):

“The other girl, or other women, whatever. I mean, I was thinking that, they are just fantasies, you know? And they always seem really great, because there are never any problems. And if there are, they are the cute problems, like we bought each other the same Christmas present, or she wants to see a movie I’ve already seen, you know. Then I come home...and you and I have real problems, you don’t want to see a movie I want to see, period.”

That said, I would take my husband over my teenage celebrity crushes any day.