"The feeling we get around a crush, or when a crush is starting to form, is actually quite similar to the feeling we get when we define a new goal or set a new aim that really excites us."

There may be something to this, but I have a couple of caveats:

1) The reproductive impulse is much stronger than a simple goal orientation impulse. Or at the very least it's at the same degree of strength, being one of the basic instincts.

2) I'm not particularly goal oriented or performative, but I have had crushes. I'm hardly unique in this.

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Breaking this down in terms of basic motivations by using the Enneagram of personality (a personality typology heavily based on primary motivations) plus the three instinctual variants:

Goal orientation, while present in particular ways in a variety of the Enneagram types, is very basic to type 3, as is performativity. I don't know the blogger's type; they could easily be one of the other types that has some goal orientation and/or performativity within their makeup, or might interpret their life in this manner for formative reasons.

The sexual instinctual variant is the one that primarily motivates attraction toward (or repulsion from) particular persons or things. I would be willing to bet that the author is at least sexual second, and most likely sexual first.

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Going back to the original article it seems quite likely that a crush would play out much the same way other mental phenomena would in a particular person with particular motivations. So I don't think the blogger is wrong to make this connection, I just think they've insufficiently generalized.

"This feels obvious as I write it out. I mean, there's evidence of this everywhere in my life. But there is no evidence as rich and obvious as my crushes—as the people that catch my attention and hold it."

Yes, our typological and personal motivations play out most strongly through our instinctual variants, especially our dominant instinct.

"So, why are there other individuals that I'm also drawn to, intrigued by?"

This is the nature of your being, if you are sexual first. But not all attraction needs, or even wants, sexual or romantic fulfillment. This attraction instinct has other purposes besides sex. I'm sexual second (with OCD) and at times, especially earlier in life, when I was in an interesting conversation with someone, I'd have a visual flash of kissing them (there's the OCD), despite having no actual-sexual interest in them.

Reading this, I can’t help but think of that classic Jack Nicholson line from As Good as it Gets: “You make me want to be a better man.”