After reading The Elegant Universe I developed an innocent crush on its author, the string-theory physicist Dr. Brian Greene. I mean, get a load of this subtitle: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory. Seriously.

Sometimes, I would reach for the book and simply open the rear cover so I could study the author photo on the inside flap. The intense, smoldering eyes, the nose, itself suggestive of superior intelligence, and the lips -indescribably sensuous and yet mischievous. Green is a hybrid of handsome and adorable, from the same assembly line as David Duchovny. I could have looked at that photo all day. Often, this is exactly what I did.

The more I stared at him, the richer and more meaningful our relationship became. Until at last we were sitting side by side in a midnight blue BMW 5-series, on our way to our beach house in East Hampton. On the smooth interior surface of his commitment ring was this inscription: Don't string me along. Inscribed inside mine: I want to tie you up.

My innocent crush had become a pitiful fixation. The ragged, muddy obsession of an alcoholic who could not even compute four times seventeen with a calculator.

When rational thinking made its brief return, I understood that the only possibility I had of ever being in a car with Brian Greene was if I became a cab driver. Or was shot by his security detail and tossed into the trunk.

I will admit this: the crush never actually passed. Not technically. But I was eventually able to accept the fact, sorry as it may be, that I had what is known as a Celebrity Crush.

The Celebrity Crush is a strange thing, indeed. Because it actually feels quite real. As real as any crush you could have on the woman who works in the office next to yours, the guy you see every morning on the subway or on your physics teacher. The difference is, a Celebrity Crush isn't a crush on an actual person. It's emotional stirrings solely based on the image of a person which has been warped through the lens of the media. In addition, the Celebrity Crush is based on something every co-dependant knows and lives for: The Impossible.

Never in real life does the fat girl sit on her bed and say wistfully to herself, "God, I wish the president of the United States of America would fuck me with a cigar and then cum on my blue dress," only to then experience exactly this. It just doesn't happen. Almost never.

Because here's the problem: The Celebrity you love? They don't actually know you exist, let alone know who you are, as a person. The problem arises when you think, "Well, I can fix that," and decide to meet the celebrity object of your Celebrity Crush -hoping that the many months of intense feeling you have experienced will show in your eyes, and like a lighthouse on a dark and rocky cliff, send a signal straight to their heart -I am your safe harbor, I am your love, follow my light.

But what the celebrity sees in your eyes is CRAZY. Nothing more, just CRAZY. And CRAZY has an absolute look: intense focus, melting love, panic, euphoria, need. All communicated with the clarity of a text message and in the space of an instant. It is a mathematical certainty that your celebrity will want you only to die.

Because you have transformed from being a person with an innocent Celebrity Crush into a stalker, an actual criminal, a fully authorized loser.

I understood all of this, but still I loved Brian Greene, string theorist. And what's even more shocking and alarming is that I believed, if he knew me? He would find me fascinating and we would be together.

Those exact words have formed in my brain, hung suspended in the air above my head like a cloud of feeding insects.

And I am an otherwise sane, despite the odds, adult male person with no criminal history and an almost painfully rational and cynical nature.

I told myself, "What in the world makes you think he's even gay, for starters."

That was the easiest of my internal interrogation questions to answer. "I don't think he is gay. I think he's straight. But I think he'll change teams when he meets me because love will triumph over mere sexual orientation. The man understands the fucking universe, a little thing like 'no titties here' isn't going to derail him."

I may have understood the Celebrity Crush but I was not immune to it and I was certainly not, as I had always assumed, above it.

I wondered, is there an evolutionary basis for the Celebrity Crush? Thousands of years ago, were stories told in the darkest corner of the cave; tales of a great Hunter Man who "downed more Beasts than any had before him. With his fierce gaze, he hypnotized the Beasts and then clubbed them dead with sticks. All ate well for many moons."

And did these stories install in the listener a Celebrity Crush, which then served to motivate? To give hope? Or even to challenge? To somehow further the species of Man?

Surely, there had to be a biological reason for the Celebrity Crush. It could not simply be a matter of the human monkey sees the Pretty Thing it knows it can't have so it decides it Wants it Bad." Such a fixation, it seemed to me, could stall evolution.

Because I knew, as long as Brian Greene, string theorist, was in the world, I couldn't mate with anybody else. Not that this would actually stall evolution anymore than my normal mating habits would, but you get the idea.

Then, the hand of God came down from the sky holding a large silver tablespoon filled with a taste of my own medicine.

I found myself on the other end of a Celebrity Crush.

A guy sent me an email, quite flattering, about one of my books. Along with the email, he attached a photo. He was very handsome.

Some time later, he wrote again. And then again. And then a few more times.

Each note was more amorous than the last. In one he said, "I feel we might be soulmates."

While I briefly entertained the notion, because he did have a passing resemblance to David Duchovny who in turns resembles my Brian Greene, I mostly felt creeped out. "If he only knew me," I thought, feeling sorry for the man and feeling a little fascinated, in the abstract.

During my next book tour, the man showed up at an event. I saw him in the line to have his book signed and I was anxious. Had he decided it was time to shoot me? Was he going to spray me with tainted blood?

When he finally stepped up before me he said, "I just want to say, for the longest time I had the biggest crush on you. And then tonight, I heard you and saw you speak for the first time and it was like this incredible cloud lifted. Suddenly, you were real. And you were nothing like what I thought you'd be like. And my crush just evaporated into thin air. And it was a wonderful feeling, to see you, really see you, as a person. Thank you."

Then he walked away.

And I wanted to shout after him, "Now, hey! Wait a damn minute!"

Because seeing him walk away like that? Totally confident and emotionally healthy and over me? It was very attractive.