I’d venture to say that most people who are worth getting to know long-term are not great in the first date context. Maybe it’s because it’s usually too safe a setting–heavy topics often off limits, no challenges, no common history, no food even. Just sterile exchanges of info and sipping of liquids. I’d much prefer a second date of driving across town to borrow a truck and move a bed, or hunkered in a couch after a bike accident (both speaking from experience). Dates are more about survival (sexy) than fun (simple) for me.

I’m not dating much anymore, but the last time I went on a first date, I discovered that I actually like talking about one topic–celebrity crushes of childhoods. You get so much relevant information, casually. To me, crush necessitates an obsession to know everything and consume everything made by the people, who were mostly musicians in my case.

Here are mine. (No one will enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.) I’m a bit disappointed that all of them are white, but I swear I branched out in real life.

Age 9: Nick Carter. Sparked by puberty and fueled mostly by GeoCities fan websites, where I could learn what his favorite color, food and relationship status were. Creepy fan fact: I named my pillow after him

Age 11: Darren Hayes / Daniel Jones. I would love to be the filling in that Savage Garden sandwich. This crush lasted much longer than the previous, and I was pleased with myself for graduating to real men. Creepy fan fact: I was part of a SG chatroom for at least 3 years, in which I chatted with housewives and pretended to be four years older than I was.

Age 14: Craig Nichols. He was the most androgynous and cute lead singer of the garage bands I listened to. Others were more conventionally attractive, but they were too famous, and Craig seemed deeply anti-social and disturbed, which I sometimes have a bad habit of interpreting as smart. Creepy fan fact: I drew large-scale pieces of their album covers and hung them on my room, and coined the phrase “What would Craig do?”

Age 15: Conor Oberst. I needed someone who was way more angsty than I was, to get through high school. Creepy fan fact: I went on a vegetarian diet and lost like 15 pounds because that seemed very “Bright Eyes.”

Age 16: Stuart Murdoch. I loved him mostly for his music and blog, but he definitely opened my mind to the possibility of men older enough to be my father. Creepy fan fact: I went to Stuart’s church when I visited Scotland and he invited me to a birthday party, where I couldn’t keep down any food and my nose bled out of excitement.

Age 16 or 17: James McAvoy. I rarely get excited about actors, but after Stuart, my heart could never resist a down-to-earth Scotsman. Creepy fan fact: I watched a nude sex scene with him in Shameless, but none of the rest of the show because their accents were too thick for me to understand.

Since then, I’ve had no other true to form crushes–and aren’t we all relieved about that. The closest would be Adam Driver.

Last confession: I’ve developed at least 5 real life crushes (3 of which went on to be “consummated”) on people who looked like some of these guys. I will never outgrow my childhood. I AM the creepiest fan.