Precocious Crush

"Just thinkin' about someone special..."

Charlie Brown: I think our teacher is in love.
Linus: I was afraid of that. I've always hoped that she'd wait until I grew up, and then marry me.
Charlie Brown: How would you support her?

Linus: We could live off her retirement pay.
—Peanuts, March 21, 1989

Children having "crushes" on one another isn't uncommon. To most children, loving someone just means liking them a lot—they have no notions of romantic or sexual love, and are, for the most part, innocent. They may make a Childhood Marriage Promise with their best friend just because, and even pretend to get "married." Older kids generally have a basic idea of the birds and the bees, but still have to deal with raging hormones and lots of confusion.

But what happens when kids get crushes on adults?

In some cases, Squick happens. But in most instances, you have an ordinary kid who has to deal with ordinary awkwardness of having a crush on someone way out of their league.

The Precocious Crush is any instance of a child (usually pre-teen or younger, though young teenagers are sometimes susceptible) having a crush on an adult. Teachers are common targets, as are other, non-related caretakers. While having this kind of crush is more often associated with girls, it is increasingly common to portray boys as having this kind of crush. Usually, nothing ever comes of it—at least not until the character in question is much older, and even then, it still might seem a bit Squicky to some. In animation, the trope can be invoked without fully using it in the case of teenagers, where one character is only a few years younger than their crush, but differing rates of physical development makes the crush look a lot older than them.

Although it may seem to have Unfortunate Implications, this trope is actually Truth in Television. Lots of kids get crushes on teachers, after all. See also Puppy Love, where two little kids crush on each other. Should anything actually happen in the relationship, see Wife Husbandry, Jail Bait Wait, Hot for Student, and May-December Romance. See also Likes Older Women.

Examples of Precocious Crush include:

Anime and Manga

  • Shizuka Minamoto from Doraemon definitely counts here.
  • Sasami from Tenchi Muyo! has occasionally expressed some interest in Tenchi (But then, who hasn't?)
    • Despite wishes to the contrary by some of the fanbase, it's not subverted by the fact she's over 700 years old, because she spent about 690 of those years in Suspended Animation.
    • Played straight with Ryo-Ohki, who is shown to dream of being with Tenchi, picking carrots together.
  • Cardcaptor Sakura:
    • Sakura Kinomoto was like this with her brother's Love Interest Yukito (it was a CLAMP production, in case you were unaware), though they gave it a plot-related propping up towards the end and the two of them ultimately end up with other people (Sakura falls for Syaoran; Yukito, for her brother Touya. Both of them are around their love interest's same ages).
    • Then there's Rika Sasaki's huge crush on her adult teacher, Yoshiyuki Terada, which is a point of contention with fans since he apparently accepts and reciprocates it (though he tells her to wait until she's of age).
  • Happens to Miroku (of course) and a young girl named Koharu in Inuyasha, although we only see the second half of it.
    • By the same author, Ranma ½ begins with Akane Tendo having a onesided crush on Dr. Tofu, a chiropractor who has apparently been something of the family physcian for many years, having been responsible for treating Akane's sprains and bruises since she was a little girl. He is completely oblivious to her feelings for her, though, and this coupled with his freakish obsession with her elder sister Kasumi helps her to get over it.
  • Cute Witch Schierke/Silke from Berserk—Intelligent, talented, and crushing furiously on Guts, who's twice her age.
    • And then there was Jill (during the Fairy Arc), who looks to be around Schierke's age, and was likewise crushing furiously on Guts. To the point where she persistently followed him around, trying to get him to agree to allow her to stay by his side. In fact, he was pretty much her main reason for not agreeing to become one of Roshinu's faeries when given the chance - her hesitation was shown to be mainly because of her crush on him.
    • Likewise, in the Hawks camp, young Sonia is head over heels for Griffith.
  • In the Sailor Moon anime Usagi's brother Shingo develops a crush on Ami. This really isn't all that unreasonable given that the age difference between them is just four years (Shingo's around eleven, Ami is fifteen) exactly the same for his older sister and Mamoru. In fact, the Ami/Shingo pairing isn't even all that uncommon in fan fiction.
    • Chibiusa has a precocious crush on Mamoru, despite knowing that he's her future father.
    • She also thinks Shingo (who, for the record, is her uncle) is pretty cute.
  • Pinoko, from Black Jack. Not only does she know things someone her age shouldn't, she's really the only person who can assist Black Jack in surgery, gets jealous when he pays any attention at all to other women (well, women, at least), and tends to get around just fine in areas Black Jack doesn't want her around.
    • This is played with, because Pinoko is actually 18 years old at least. She was originally a sentient tumor (and possible parasitic twin) in the body of a teenage girl, and Black Jack extracted her from her sister's body and gave her an artificial bod of her own, shaped as a little girl. She went to live with him after her "twin sister" freaked out and rejected her,
  • Poor, poor Masato (Max) from Pokemon (who is not old enough to be a Pokemon trainer) developed such a crush on the youngest Kachinuki (Winstrate). She is more naive than he and ends up breaking his heart.
  • Kaguya Sumeragi from Code Geass is 14 when she proclaims herself Zero's future wife and proceeds to become the show's Token Mini-Moe. She even proposes the Tenchi Solution when someone else tries to tease her about the other women in Zero's life.
    • It's worth noting that Lelouch himself is 16/17 years (although everyone assumes the masked vigilante Zero is much older under the mask)), so the age difference is quite small, and both are Wise Beyond Their Years, though Kaguya prefers to act younger than she is, most of the time. Nothing becomes of it, regardless.
    • Also, some people interpret Empress Tianzi's thoughts towards her guardian Li Xingke that way. The squick is greater since Tianzi is 13 and Xingke is 24, and she's known him for half her life.
    • Mao apparently developed one for C.C. at an early age when they lived alone in the wild together, eventually developing into full fledged Yandere love when he gets older. He even takes it to Stalker with a Crush and Love Martyr proportions.
  • In Axis Powers Hetalia, Little Romano (South Italy) develops one of these on resident Cool Big Sis Belgium. Even if he does back away when she cheerfully indulges him.
  • Early in Maison Ikkoku, Kentaro Ichinose (the little boy) announces that when he grows up he's going to marry Kyoko, so Godai better back off. Kyoko is amused by it. Later he falls even harder for Kyoko's niece Ikuko, so it wasn't an issue for long. Ibuki gets a big crush on Godai; she's seven years younger but at least she's in high school.
  • In Skuld's special episode at the end of Ah! My Goddess, she begins exhibiting this trope towards Keichi, But Urd tried to sabotage it and deliberately create a Snap Back- commenting to herself that it was for Skuld's own good. As it turned out, however, Skuld was only getting emotional as a part of Goddess puberty, and her full powers were kicking in. Once that settled, she mostly dropped said crush. In the manga version of the story, she merely suspects that she has a crush on Keiichi and sets out to prove that she doesn't.
  • Played for Laughs in Crayon Shin-chan: Shin, who is in kindergarten, falls in love with college student Nanako Oohara; meanwhile his classmate Ai Suotome has a crush on him.
  • In Gunslinger Girl, Henrietta seems to have quite a crush on her handler Jose. This is never really built on, but remains Henrietta's most notable character trait, and is contrasted with Elsa's fatally disabling crush towards her handler.
  • Sakura Taisen's Token Mini-Moes all fit into this category: Iris (10), who wants Ohgami (19) to be her boyfriend; Coquelicot (9), also with a crush on Ohgami; and Rika (11), who's in love with Taiga (not sure how old he is — 18-20 probably?).
  • Nagi (13) in Hayate the Combat Butler has a crush on Hayate (16). He cares deeply for her, but not that way.
  • Mahou Sensei Negima has Asuna Kagurazaka (14) crushing on Takamichi (mid to late 30's). May be subverted as Asuna is older than she looks and may very well be as old or older than Takamichi. She just doesn't remember it.
    • Asuna also has a similar attraction to the mid-to-late-40s Eishun Konoe, the father of her best friend Konoka, and had a bit of a similar reaction the first time she saw Nagi in a dream. Given that they, also, adventured with her and had a hand in, basically, raising her, this may be feeling for them as parents (except Takamichi), misplaced due to amnesia.
    • It has been recently revealed that, as a kid no older than 15, Kurt Godel used to have a huge crush on Negi's mother Queen Arika. Now that he's in his 30's, he's still in love with her. Nodoka's Artifact says so.
    • Asuna getting turned down also has nothing to do with her age, oddly enough. Takamichi simply feels unworthy of love, especially from royalty. And it's actually not odd at all since she's at least three or four times his age.
    • Nagi treats Evangeline's crush on him as this the first time its mentioned. When she points out her age he turns it around that she's far too old for him and that it was still creepy.
  • Eve (who is assumed to be around 11) from Black Cat has a crush on Sven (30 years old). To the point where she actually feels a rivalry towards Train, wanting to replace him as Sven's partner.
  • Marie has a crush on the older Ageha in Psyren. Things get a bit complicated when Ageha travels to the future and discovers that, along with her Plot-Relevant Age-Up, she is still crushing on him.
  • Tomoe Marguerite from Mai-Otome develops a crush on a teen-aged Shizuru as a pre-teen girl, even going so far as to sneak onto campus to get a look at her. Several years later when Tomoe is 15 and a student in Garderobe, it becomes very squicky when she sexually manipulates an adult, captive Shizuru (who is now a staff member at the school Tomoe attends) and basically rapes her..
  • Nanaka 6/17: Kuriko, a kindergartener, gets a crush on high-schooler Nenji because he saves her from some bullies and looks like her older brother, who is abroad.
  • Hell Teacher Nube's fifth-grader Kyoko has a harmless, unrequited crush on her 25 year-old teacher, Nube, due to a combination of Rescue Romance from several years ago, and a Bodyguard Crush from a previous life (in which they were the same age.) However, both Kyoko and Nube have other love interests (Hiroshi, for Kyoko; Yukime and Ritsuko , for Nube, so it never goes any further than that (despite Minki's teasing.)
  • Asuka Langley Sohryu is fourteen, and her crush and former guardian Kaji is thirty.
    • Going by the official timeline, Asuka's thirteen until the last few days of the series, and Kaji has been her guardian for some time before the series begins. Her crush may or may not be a more recent development.
    • In the NGE world, the guardians get all the love. Shinji fantasizes about his own guardian, Misato. But, in marked contrast with Asuka, Shinji is thoroughly disgusted with himself for these feelings, which he never admits to anyone. And toward the end of the series, when a distraught and lonesome Misato suggests to an even more distraught and lonesome Shinji what seems to be an offer of 'comfort sex', he not only balks but soon thereafter runs away for good.
    • In the show's Geodesic Cast, semi-official couple Misato and Kaji are the respective adult parallels of semi-official couple Asuka and Shinji.
    • Jerkass guardians get love, too. As horrible as Gendou is to pretty much everyone, his ward Rei included (if not most of all), at the start of the series, Gendou seems to be the only character to whom Rei has developed any sort of emotional attachment. As the series progresses, Rei's feelings gradually transfer from Gendou to his son Shinji, and intensify enormously in the process. Which alters rather than alleviates the squickiness, since she's the clone of Gendou's wife / Shinji's mother, Yui.
  • And of course, RahXephon has 16 year old Ayato having a crush on 28 year old Haruka... Which turns out quite differently than in EVA.
  • Mika from Gungrave (who is about fourteen) develops one for Grave, who's saved her on numerous occasions and is also not just her bodyguard, he's also her mother's former sweetheart. However, Grave's also undead and is way older than her (he was about 29-30 at time of death and reanimation stopped his aging but still). It doesn't go much further than that, as Grave specifically tells her that all he can do for her is to serve as her Guardian.
  • In Black Butler, Angelina aka Madame Red was revealed to have harbored a deep Precocious Crush on Earl Vincent Phantomhive, Ciel's father. At the time, she was quite a bit younger than him. Unfortunately for her, he ended up marrying her older sister Rachel, Ciel's mother. And some years later, both Vincent and Rachel got killed..
    • In the anime, Finny also has one on Angela.
  • In Rurouni Kenshin, a girl named Tsubaki (who's at most 13 years old) is a bit of a Tsundere to Anji (in his early/mid 20's), the gentle and peaceful Buddhist monk who took her and a bunch of other orphaned children in. The younger kids swear by this trope and actively ship them together. Too bad Tsubaki and the other children are killed by their greedy townspeople, which makes poor Anji cross the Despair Event Horizon and have a Face Heel Turn.
  • While not as major as some, Game X Rush has Sayako, a 13-year-old Teen Genius, crushing on 19-year-old Memori who doesn't seem to notice. (Granted, he's a little preoccupied.) This continues three years into the future, when Sayako is 16 and Memori 22.
  • 8 year old Rebecca Hopkins from Yu-Gi-Oh! has one of 15-year-old Yuugi. It's less Squicky in the Japanese version, where she's 12 years old.
  • Arguably, Neliel from Bleach. "Arguably" because Neliel isn't exactly a little kid. She's a full grown adult Action Girl who ended up stuck in a Sleep Mode Size after a serious injury. However, she still shows affection to Ichigo like a child does.
    • Loly and Menoly are a straighter example. They look around 14 as much, and their crush Aizen looks like he's in his 30's.
  • In Demon Diary, Leeche (about eight years old) manages to kiss Raenef (fifteen or so), after their near-Accidental Marriage was effectively annulled, and makes him promise to wait ten years for her and not just go ahead and marry some other girl. He seems to be even more clueless than she is.
  • In Durarara!!, Shinra Kishitani has been harboring an intense and very vocal crush on his Dullahan housemate, Celty, for the last twenty years. He's only twenty-four. Do the math.
    • His friend Shizuo Heiwajima, as a child, had a huge crush on a cute shopkeeper from his neighborhood. She got seriously injured when Shizuo had a psychotic breakdown while trying to protect her from thugs, and several years after that, he still considers the terrible incident as his greatest failure.
  • Hanamaru Kindergarten is about a five-year-old little girl's adorably bungled attempts to get her kindergarten teacher to love her. She's convinced he has a crush on her, since... he called her "Little Lady." Unlike Kodomo no Jikan, this plays its subject matter for laughs and d'aawwws.
  • Rita in Michiko to Hatchin is a ten-year old foundling with a Precocious Crush for the man who discovered her and adopted her into the circus he worked in. Since the object of her affections is about to settle down with a woman, she's intensely jealous. However, she gets over it.
  • In Tiger and Bunny, protagonist Kotetsu's 10/11-year-old daughter Kaede develops a crush on her dad's 24-year-old partner Barnaby after he saves her life in the second episode. Kotetsu's a bit annoyed about it.
  • In Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden, Takiko has a crush on her father's assistant, who is at least 10 years older than she is...and Happily Married.
    • In the 3rd OVA to the original Fushigi Yuugi series, Mayo falls in love with Taka at an ice cream parlor while she is in Junior High. Her unrequited feelings become a major plot point as she tries to rewrite the Universe of the Four Gods so that she becomes Taka's wife instead of Miaka.
  • In a Filler episode of Heat Guy J, a girl named Hime ("Princess") decides that she likes Daisuke's older brother Shun. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist has May Chang, who at first has a crush on Ed... and then she actually meets him. From there her crush shifts to Ed's much more polite brother Al, who's around her same age. It is heavily implied that they end up together years later.
  • Mawaru Penguindrum has Ringo, who falls for Keiju Tabuki when she's a little girl. He's old enough to be her schoolteacher, and is in fact the teacher of the Takakura brothers Kanba and Shoma. And her was the boyfriend of Momoka, Ringo's dead older sister.
  • In Tsukigasa, one of Azuma's young students tries to disrupt Kuroe's lessons because he has a crush on Azuma and sees Kuroe as his rival. It's Played for Laughs considering how worked up Kuroe gets over it.
  • In Heartcatch Precure, a young boy is revealed to have a crush on Yuri, and Tsubomi, Erika and Itsuki set out to help him reveal it. He's temporarily shot down (and turned into a Desertian) when Yuri says she considers him like a little brother, but when he recovers and she learns how he feels, he realizes he should start small and decides he'd be there to protect her which he does - he's one of the few survivors when the world becomes a desert and is there to help the Precures out of their Darkest Hour.
  • Isami in Noein has a rather obvious crush on his teacher Ms. Yukie, which his friends tease him endlessly over. Several future timelines show him eventually getting into a real relationship with his childhood friend Ai.

Comic Books

  • A variation of this occured in X-Factor. Waif Prophet Layla Miller didn't act like she had a crush on Jamie Madrox, but several times told him, that they eventually going to get married.
  • Molly from Runaways had a crush on Wolverine, until she found out what a jerk he was (To be fair to Logan, she was shrieking at an unbearable level and asking to touch his hair)
  • Sin City: John Hartigan, 60, saves Nancy Callahan, 11, from a pedophile. When he is set up as a scapegoat and sent to jail she confesses her love and promises to wait. When he is released 8 years later he discovers that she kept her promise. While she is technically legal, he still refuses to make a move on her because of the age difference and their history.
  • In Jeff Smith's Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil, Billy Batson has a crush on beautiful reporter, Helen Fidelity (a blonde expy of Lois Lane). Helen likes Captain Marvel (who is a separate personality in this version). This dynamic continues into the sequel series, Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam.
  • A late 70s issue of Josie and the Pussy Cats centered around a little boy who appearead to be stalking Josie and Melody. When Alexander finally apprehends him, the young stalker tearfully admits he had a crush on Melody, who is so flattered she kisses the boy smack on the lips. The kid launches off into space.


Film

  • Jenny in the movie Big Fish
  • While a borderline example due to the ages involved, this trope is the main plot point of 1979 movie Sooner or Later.
  • Bridge to Terabithia - Jesse has a crush on his music teacher, Ms. Edmunds.
    • Also seen in two other Disney live-action films, The Kid and Blank Check. The latter has a Squick-ish moment in that the young boy actually gets a brief on-the-mouth kiss from the adult woman at the end, who tells him to look her up when he's older.
  • Teenage girl Megan has a crush on the at least thirty-something Preacher in Pale Rider.
  • In The Sandlot, Michael "Squints" has a crush on the lifegaurd at the swimming pool, knockout blonde Wendy Peffercorn. Actually all of them do, but Squints is the only one who acts on it. He can't swim, so he jumps into the deep end of the pool so she'll perform CPR. It works. The kids all get banished from the pool forever. Once they're grown up, Squints and Wendy get married and have 9 kids.
  • Also in Jack when the titular character gets a crush on his school teacher. Played with and justified since he suffers from a disorder that speeds up his aging four-fold (so he looks and appears 40 when he's actually 10 at heart), he sees it as OK because he looks like a grown-up (which eliminates girls his own actual age). The teacher understands this, but still turns him down, because he is ten years old at heart and it would still be wrong regardless of what he looks like.
  • Mikey's evident crush on Andi in The Goonies.
  • The Indian girl from Legends of the Fall started like this, and then she won.
  • In the film version of Jurassic Park, tomboy hacker Lex Murphy clearly has a crush on paleontologist Alan Grant, even before he saves her life. In the novel, Lex is much younger, so this subtext is absent.
  • In Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros), 12-year-old Maxi, a boy from a family of petty criminals in the Manila slums, falls in love with a handsome rookie cop. They become friends and the cop, whose sexuality is left ambiguous, grows quite fond of Maxi, but nothing happens between them except the cop telling Maxi he's pretty and stroking his hair and Maxi stealing a quick peck on the cheek.
  • The little penguin Arnold in Surf's Up has one for local lifeguard Lani, to the point where he routinely attempts to drown himself, just so she can rescue him.
  • Anakin Skywalker towards Padmé Amidala in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. She likes the kid well enough, but doesn't really return the feelings until He's All Grown Up in Attack of the Clones.
  • Neil in Mysterious Skin. It's not so much a crush as it is an instant 'sledgehammer' of desire he feels upon seeing his baseball coach for the first time. And unlike most other examples of this trope, it does not go unrequited. Horrible, horrible, horrible events ensue.
  • Disney's Robin Hood has Skippy's sister remarking how handsome Robin was. Robin never addresses it and it was only brought up in that one scene.


Literature

  • Oddly enough, The Divine Comedy - where Dante travels from Hell to Heaven in search of his lost love - was based on the author's Precocious Crush. In reality, Beatrice was not Dante's wife, lover, or even someone he courted, he actually met her when he was nine years old and saw her again once when he was 18; that's it. Clearly, Beatrice was something of a childhood crush for him.
  • 9-year-old Phaedra has one of these on 18-year-old bull-leaping star Theseus in Mary Renault's The King Must Die - especially unfortunate because by the sequel she has grown up to be a full-fledged Femme Fatale.
  • Played with in The Time Traveler's Wife: the title character makes an awkward attempt to seduce her future husband when she is sixteen and he is visiting from the future. He refuses, telling her that he can't because he has a wonderful wife who he loves very much. She is crushed, even though she knows that she is (will be) that wife.
  • Robert Heinlein's The Door Into Summer. An adult male time traveler is friend/honorary uncle to an 11 year old girl, who falls in love with him. He goes into cold sleep twice into the future. The girl waits until she's 21, then enters cold sleep herself, to awake when he returns.
    • In Podkayne of Mars, Podkayne's younger brother develops a crush on a lady traveling with them on the space voyage to Venus.
    • A similar situation happens in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, except she joins a time-and-dimension-traveling agency and works for them until she ages up enough. From her crush's perspective, it was only a few days.
  • In The Devil's Backbone, one of the students has a wholesome crush on a teacher. The teacher's boyfriend, when he was a student, was engaged in a less wholesome relationship with the principal.
  • The main plot of Joy School by Elizabeth Berg. Jimmy takes it extraordinarily well, all things considered.
  • Although she's not seen in the actual story until she's an adult and the Queen of Elenia, the Elenium trilogy by David Eddings indicates that Ehlana had one of these for Sparhawk from the age of seven onward, sparked because he was one of the few people she could truly trust. Of course, they end up married despite the twenty-odd-year age difference, so it was a bit different from most crushes of this sort.
    • Of course, when they later have a daughter, she announces by age four who she's going to marry. Considering what she is, she probably will.
  • Played for tragedy in the Chilean novel El niño que enloqueció de amor ("The boy who went crazy for love"). A boy no older than 12 falls in love with his beautiful neighbor Angélica and becomes obsessed with her. To say It Got Worse is, well, an understatement.
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau (yes, that one) had the stones to publicly admit to this in one of the most celebrated autobiographies of all time. Bonus points for deliberately misbehaving so his teacher would spank him.
  • There's a form of this in Starfighers of Adumar, where dueling champion Cheriss gets a crush on New Republic hero Wedge Antilles. Compared to Adumari pilots, he's practically a god. He considers her to be somewhat younger than what he'd call adult, although she is risking her life in blastsword duels. It's never stated how old she is; in a previous book Wedge treated sixteen-year-old Gavin Darklighter like an inexperienced adult, but he called Gavin "kid", and he never does that to Cheriss. He's embarrassed by the crush and tries to ignore it. She sees Wedge's Old Flame as competition of sorts, and when Wedge actually hooks up with his old lover again, Cheriss tries to commit suicide by honorable combat. Wedge talks her out of it while finally getting out his dislike for this Proud Warrior Race society.
  • In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, twelve-year-old Hermione has a crush on Professor Lockhart, but then, so do most of the girls in Hogwarts (not to mention Molly Weasley and the other mothers.)
    • And in Order of the Phoenix most of the girls (but not Hermione) have a crush on Firenze.
    • According to Fleur in Half-blood Prince, her younger sister Gabrielle has a crush on Harry.
    • Of course, Ginny had a crush on Harry from the beginning, which morphed into a more mature affection, an example of how age difference seems larger the yonger you are.
  • In Christpher Moore's Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, the titular Biff confesses to growing up with a crush on Jesus's mom Mary.
  • In Linnea Sinclair's Hope's Folly, Rya was ten years old when her father brought one of his subordinate officers home for dinner. While Philip vaguely remembers her as an obnoxious little girl hellbent on bothering him, she remembers him as the ultra-cool friend of her father who took the time to teach her how to shoot properly. When they meet up, in her mid-twenties and his late-forties, Rya's crush reignites and she pursues a May–December Romance with him.
  • Similar to the above example, Glokta's backstory in The First Law makes mention of him, the dashing war hero, visiting the home of his subordinate and friend, Collem West. Little sister Ardee West was just a child at the time, but thought Glokta was the man of her dreams. When they meet again some ten years later, the child he vaguely recalls has grown up beautiful, he starts falling for her, and she...well...two years of torture make a man somewhat less dreamy, and she's more interested in Jezal than a girlhood crush. Jezal kicks her to the curb in the end, though, and Glokta gets the girl. Kind of.
  • Jesse has a crush on his music teacher in Bridge to Terabithia.
  • In Hilary McKay's third book in the popular Casson Family Series, the implication in Permanent Rose is that Rose (who is only eight/nine at the time) has a crush on Tom Levin, who is at least twelve/thirteen at the time, but she isn't aware of it herself that she has a crush on him, whereas everyone else in her family is cognizant of it.
  • The narrator of Jacob Have I Loved, at the age of fourteen develops a crush on Captain Wallace, a man who, at seventy, is older than her grandmother. Squick.
  • Speaking of Squick, there's a particularly disturbing example in the Petaybee series when 'Cita, who was raised by a cult and married off at the age of twelve, develops a thing for Matthew Luzon. She probably isn't the only one, but still.
  • In The Roman Mysteries, Flavia, at the age of ten, has a crush on Publius Pollius Felix, who is in his thirties, married, has a daughter her age, and is later found out to have slept with most of his slave-girls and a good deal of other women, causing his wife to try and poison herself. Eventually she sees him for what he really is and gets over him.
  • While the age difference is not that huge, in the Wind on Fire series, eight-year-old Pinto has a crush on Mumpo, who is fifteen (legally able to be married in the world the two live in) and in love with her older sister Kestrel. She gets him in the end after Kestrel "dies", though.
  • Fourteen year old Evelyne, from Malevil, has a severe infatuation with Emmanuel. Unfortunately, she gets possessive, Emmanuel bows out of his Apocalypse-induced Polyamory relationship, and he becomes accused of being a Lolicon.
  • In Ronald Frame's The Lantern Bearers, a 14-year-old boy soprano spends the summer singing for a young composer and becomes attracted to him. When the boy's voice suddenly breaks he is summarily kicked out -- shades of Benjamin Britten's boys -- and in revenge falsely accuses the composer of having "touched" him, with tragic results.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire has Bran crushing on Meera. Even though she is not actually that much older than him in years, since he is only nine, a few years makes a very big difference. In any case, his crush has the archetypal innocence and Moeness of this trope.
    • Depending on how much you consider her a child (she is about 12, but the Medieval Fantasy setting makes this old enough to marry,) Sansa could be said to have one for Ser Loras and the Hound. Possibly, you could say she has a Precocious Crush on Ser Loras, (since she thinks of him in childish fairy-tale terms,) but a more mature sort of attraction for the Hound, (who has made her his Morality Pet, but simultaneously terrifies her and arouses her pity, leaving her very confused about her feelings for him).
  • In Connie Willis's Blackout, the adolescent Colin explains to Polly that he hopes through some Time Travel tricks to end up her own age. At the end of All Clear, he's done it, not for the crush, but in a desperate attempt to save her and another time traveler from death.
  • In Skulduggery Pleasant: Dark Days, Davina Marr mentions Valkyrie's crush on Skulduggery. Marr mocks Valkyrie's crush on her much, much older mentor and best friend again in Mortal Coil. Valkyrie doesn't confirm it, but neither does she deny it.

Live-Action TV

  • In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as part of the false memories created by the Monks, Dawn has had a crush on Xander for years (it likely started in Season 1 or 2 where she would have been 10 or 11). Subverted, as they're now together as of Season 8.
  • Kenan's sister Kyra was comically interested in Kel in Kenan and Kel.
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode "Tormented", with the jazz protagonist and little Sandie, baby sister of his fiancee.
  • The Brady Bunch: for one episode Marcia wanted to become "Mrs. Marcia Dentist", having a crush on her dentist at the time (and not even knowing his last name!).
    • In another episode, Greg's grades start dropping, and his parents discover it's because he's in love with someone named Linda. Turns out Linda is his teacher.
  • An episode of Leave It to Beaver had Beaver having a crush on his 2nd grade teacher.
  • Glee: Rachel spent an episode infatuated with Mr. Shuster. It didn't last past that one episode. Suzie Pepper, on the other hand...
  • In many an episode of Frasier, Frasier's 8-year-old son Frederick exhibits a huge crush on Daphne, much to Niles' chagrin.
  • A neighbour's child in Mad Men develops a crush on Betty Draper.
  • In House, the 8-year-old brother of one of House's child patients gets an enormous crush on Cameron. It starts with him stealing flowers for her, then he grabs her butt, and later he attacks Chase. This eventually leads to House solving the case, as he is wont to do.
    • There's also the little girl with cancer who manages to get Chase to kiss her.
  • Lizzie develops a crush on her soccer coach in one episode of Life with Derek.
  • In one episode of The Wonder Years, Paul had a crush on Kevin's mom Norma.
  • Sam of Quantum Leap was attracted to his piano teacher as a young teenager. In the episode "Catch A Falling Star", he leaps into an actor working on a production with her, and attempts to use the opportunity as a second chance for himself. In other episodes, he also mentions having had crushes on his kindergarten and first grade teachers.
  • Samantha Puckett on iCarly revealed her crush on Spencer in the episode iGet Pranky. Although she's seriously close to the age where the "precocious" part doesn't apply any more.
  • JJ Powell from No Ordinary Family has had one on Katie since episode 7. At least, this is the first time it's mentioned.
  • In season 3 of Happy Days, Joanie develops a short-lived crush on Potsie after, during a performance rehearsal, he sings "Put Your Head On My Shoulder" to her.
  • Punky Brewster was an established tomboy, up until season three (first syndicated season) when in a particular episode she developed a crush on a boy some seven years older than her.
  • In the Married... with Children episode "Life's a Beach", the Bundys go to the beach and Bud makes a bet with Kelly, that he will "get a squeeze" before her. As usual, he's rebuffed by women, but a little girl becomes enamored with him after he fixes her bucket, and calls him her boyfriend; thus he technically wins the bet.
  • In the Swedish kids' TV series Ebba och Didrik, 12-year-old hopeless romantic Didrik falls hard for 23-year-old Yrla. They become friends, but she's definitely not interested in him that way, and may not even be fully aware of his crush.
  • On 3rd Rock from the Sun, Tommy got a crush on his music teacher Miss Frost, with the aliens not realizing how inappropriate a relationship between them would be.

Tommy: Well, I met this woman that I really like and I think she likes me, but she's a little older. Thirty-one.
Dick: Tommy, do you really think a woman of that age would be interested in you?
Tommy: Sure.
Dick: Wow, good job!


Magazines


Music

He was not that much older than I was
He had taken our class to the Metropolitan Museum
He asked us what our favorite work of art was,
But never could I tell it was him
Oh, I wish I could tell him --
Oh, I wish I could have told him

  • Steve Wariner's "I'm Already Taken" uses three adaptations of the title phrase, the first relating to the narrator pursuing a woman who is "already taken" by another. By the time they get married in the third verse, their son says "mommy, will you marry me?" in an innocent context, and she repeats the title to him.


Newspaper Comics

  • The Boondocks showed Michael Caesar had a crush on J-Lo though according to his horror scope he may have moved on to Beyonce.
    • Granddad had one on Dorothy Dandridge. Still does.
  • In Peanuts, Linus' crush on his teacher Miss Othmar.


Theater

  • Teen example: In Grease, Marty Maraschino has a crush on (and, it's implied, possibly a brief fling with) Vince Fontaine, the master of ceremonies and judge for the televised dance contest. She's about 17; he's old enough to be her father. In the film adaptation, she also has at least one, and possibly a series, of US Marine boyfriends; she clearly likes older men.


Video Games

  • Eiko in Final Fantasy IX has a crush on Zidane.
  • Persona 3: The subject of the Hanged Man Social Link is a troubled-yet-adorable eight-year-old girl whose parents are going through a divorce. Once you reach a certain stage, she decides that she's going to get married to the protagonist when she's old enough. Neither you nor the protagonist have much say in the matter. Not like it matters that much in the end since the protagonist dies.
    • Persona 4 also has this with Nanako making a Childhood Marriage Promise, which her father (the protagonist's uncle) has differing opinions depending on what you do.
    • In Persona 3 Portable, should you choose to play as a female, the Justice Social Link is changed to be Ken Amada. And over the course of the social link, Ken develops a crush on the main character, which the player can choose to reciprocate.
  • Also Genis' crush on Presea in Tales of Symphonia is half this. It starts when he thinks she's the same age, but his feelings don't change after he discovers that she's actually twenty-eight.
    • Genis never finds out on screen how much older she is. Only that she is older than she looks. The only person present when she reveals it on screen from the party was Regal. She is deliberately nonspecific about it otherwise. However, since the closest we get is a skit in which she hints she's at least Lloyd's age (four or so years older than Genis, if memory serves), it still more or less holds.
      • Presea also has had her aging suspended, and has pretty much been not much more than an automaton in the interim, not aging mentally at all.
  • Pearl from Ace Attorney seems like this on paper, but she doesn't have a crush: she's a Shipper on Deck. And pretty willing to wound Phoenix for it.
  • Disgaea has two examples:
    • In the first game, flashbacks and diary entries reveal that Etna developed one as a child on the first person to show her kindness, King Krichevskoy. As such, she absolutely hated his wife, and when Laharl was born, she had no idea what to think of him.
    • In the sequel, Adell's younger sibling Taro really likes Rozalin—to the point that he asks to be to be her slave. She accepts, and the game titles his class "Rozy's slave".
  • Latooni's crush on Ryusei seems to invoke this in Super Robot Wars Original Generation at times, but the fact that she's only three years younger than him (14 and 17 respectively) means it may not be like that forever (see also Mai, age 16, but actually shorter than Latooni). Shine's crush on Rai, however, is played fairly straight.
  • In Breath of Fire III, Ryu's crush on Deis (AKA Bleu). Although not stated outright, it's made very obvious when he turns beet red when he first sees her naked, and the player is later shown to be given one of the few choices of saying something, wherein both answers make him express great romantic interest in her. Unfortunately for him, it's pretty impossible, as she's hundreds (if not thousands) of years old, while he's a young teenager.
    • It may not be an actual crush. Put it this way: what would your reaction be to seeing someone of the opposite sex in his/her birthday suit? Sure the other males didn't react this way (Garr comes to mind) but the reaction can still actually be logical. Still inevitably hilarious if Nina was in the party during the scene.
  • A subversion from Fate/stay night. Ilya looks like this at first, appearing to be perhaps ten and obviously displaying a good deal of affection for 18-year-old Shirou. However, she turns out be slightly older than he is... and her idea of 'affection' is seriously messed up.
    • Plus, her completely genuine affection stems from Shirou's foster father being Ilya's biological father, though she has no intention of telling him that.
    • On the other hand, he appears to know in Hollow Ataraxia at least about the way they're linked, though he still treats her as a little kid. Which is okay because she definitely acts like one. However, there's a genuine example of the trope in that Taiga used to have a huge crush on Kiritsugu which caused her to initially get along poorly with Shirou. Given that she's only twenty four now, he died five years ago and she had that crush for a pretty lengthy amount of time you can guess that the crush started when she was no older than middle school age.
  • Lumina from Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life apparently has a crush on you. In the PlayStation 2 version she 18 and is a potential bride, but in the Gamecube version she's about 11 and is a potential bride for your son.
    • Word of God is she's fourteen in AWL. She's sixteen in the Japanese version of Special Edition.
    • May, granddaughter of the local animal rancher in Back To Nature and Friends Of Mineral Town has her crush object, Pete - the player character.
  • Beth, one of the children in Ordon Village, has a fairly obvious crush on Link in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
  • In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, a later cutscene mentions that Rief's sister Nowell is off pursuing a crush on Piers, about whom the least we can assume is that he's older than her mother, if not much more so. The youthful design of Golden Sun characters does mean that Nowell kind of pushes the "child" aspect of this trope, but it fits otherwise.


Web Comics


Western Animation

  • In an episode of As Told by Ginger, Ginger (12-ish) attempts to ask her teacher to the school dance with her. While handing in her test. In front of the class. Yikes.
  • The Simpsons episode "Lisa's Substitute", where Lisa gets a crush on (substitute) teacher Mr. Bergstrom.
    • Not to mention her obsession with Corey magazine (and the hotline) in earlier seasons, all full of boys who were at least in their teens. One example in the "Brother From The Same Planet" subplot, when Marge found out about Lisa's phone calls to the hotline, she revealed to Lisa that she was in the same situation in her childhood when she had a crush on Bobby Sherman:

Marge Simpson: Oh, honey, I know how you feel. When I was a girl, I had a crush on Bobby Sherman...
[Lisa bursts out laughing]
Marge Simpson: [annoyed] The point is, I want you to stop making these calls!
Lisa Simpson: [serious] All right, Mom. I promise you, you will never be billed for another call.
[giggling uncontrollably]
Lisa Simpson: Bobby Sherman?
Marge Simpson: Mmm...

    • Bart also had a crush on new neighbor Laura Powers, who was in her mid teens. When he found out she was going out with Jimbo, one of the bullies who picks on him, he arranged a plan to break them up. It was successful—by the end of the episode, Laura had broken up with Jimbo and even told Bart that she would date him if he were older. The character was never seen again.
    • In one episode, in regards to Marge, Milhouse says "She's HOT! ...sorry that just slipped out."
    • Also happens in "The Devil Wears Nada" with Nelson and Milhouse looking at a pin-up calender featuring Marge.
  • In a case of "teen girl likes much older man", Meg Griffin had a crush on news anchor Tom Tucker (she even had a Fast Times At Ridgemont High-esque fantasy about him). She got over it when she realized what a jerk he was.
    • In one episode, Chris has a crush on his substitute teacher.

Peter: Our son... would like to plow you.

  • In an episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Mac (8) and Bloo (5) and some random imaginary friend and a pizza delivery guy develop a crush on Frankie (22). Mac and Bloo's 'feelings' for her are referenced a couple more times in later episodes.
  • On Phineas and Ferb, Ferb ("less than 15", probably about 10) has a crush on Vanessa Doofenshmirtz (16). She's dating someone else and doesn't seem to notice his crush, but he's saved her life and given her helpful advice, and Word of God actually supports the idea of them getting together "when the age thing won't matter as much."
    • A more recent episode has Irving hit on Candace and/or Stacy, though this was probably just meant as a single one-off joke in this show's perpetual Ship Tease.
  • In A Kind of Magic, Tom's crush on his teacher, Miss Tinker.
  • In Johnny Bravo, Susie is a 10 year old girl who clings to Johnny at every possible moment. He usually must go to great lengths to get rid of her.
    • Though soon after the art style shift happened in the show, her implications of having a crush on him disappeared. Likely as it would be mildly creepy to have a girl infatuated with the town lecher.
  • In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, Spike started crushing on Rarity the moment he saw her.
  • In Home Movies, Jason develops a crush on the school nurse.
  • Finn (13) of Adventure Time was crazy about Princess Bubblegum (18), and possibly Marceline (1000+), until he fell for Fire Princess (13).
  • Buttercup in the Powerpuff Girls episode "Buttercrush." She has a crush on Gangreen Gang leader Ace, which lasts up until she sees the Gang about to kill Blossom and Bubbles. The short-lived crush is even lampshaded in a comic book story ("Five Green Vandals," issue #16).
  • In Codename: Kids Next Door, Numbuh Four started to get a crush on his fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Thompson. Unfortunately, that turned out kind of weird later, when it turned out she was the Were-Dog Queen, cursed with lycanthropy by her jealous ex-husband. (He was able to break the curse in the end.)
    • Likewise, Numbuh Two also had a crush on Numbuh Five's older sister, Cree, which created a lot of problems since Cree was an evil teenager and quite cruel towards him. Besides, it's heavily implied his crush on her was a case of Loving a Shadow.
  • In Birdz, Eddie Storkowitz has one of these on his teacher, Miss Finch.
  • Happens to Arnold of all people in Hey Arnold! when he falls in love with the substitute teacher, especially when he overhears her say she's going to marry him (when in reality, she meant her same-age boyfriend, who happened to be named Arnold).
  • In Gravity Falls Dipper (12) develops one on Wendy (15) which makes him something of a rival to Robbie.
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