When I think back to every crush I’ve ever harboured (and there have, ahem, been quite the number), I can remember distinctly how each one felt. The giggling infatuation seemed like the strongest thing in the world. That dizzying excitement of desire and awkwardness, a gravitational pull that came from seeing them replying to your Facebook message or smiling at you from across the school hall. And don’t even get me started on the celebrity crushes plastered on my bedroom walls…

But even if the way we handled these feelings when we were younger make us cringe now (love calculators? Writing their name on your hand?), there’s something to be said for the optimism of it all.

“While we commonly associate crushes with teenage years, adult crushes are surprisingly common and usually completely harmless,” explains Rachel MacLynn, a matchmaker and psychologist.

Our first crushes tend to occur in our teenage years, she explains, and we often can’t act on them (because they involve someone we’ve never met in real life, such as a celebrity). Even if the object of our affection is closer to home, such as a classmate, we may not know how to act on our feelings “because we haven’t reached that stage in our development yet”.

But as an adult, when you’re too old to be silly and giggly and can simply ask anyone you’re attracted to out for a drink, how do you handle crushing on a friend or co-worker?

Having crushes as an adult is actually a very normal thing (here’s how to deal with them)