Yes, I concluded that, too, when Kirk sung that song to Spock about his "devil ears and devil eyes" that drive men on the ship insane, and when McCoy asked Spock to tell him he was a handsome man and talk to him about romantic evenings on Vulcan... oh wait.So you've concluded that she didn't have a crush on him, based on the evidence... that she acted flirty with him?
I've also concluded that McCoy didn't have a crush on him either even though he teased him about having a teddy bear. I've also concluded that Kirk didn't have a crush on him even when he teased him about "irritation". And the entire bridge teased him, and had fun at his expense at the end of Galileo Seven ... but the entire bridge were not necessarily flirting with him and probably they all did not have a crush on him either.
Spock is innocent and confused about human emotions and culture?! We're talking about a guy who grew up with a Human mother who showed emotions all the time! He also spent more than 13 years in Starfleet, serving with Humans! To be confused about Human emotions and culture after all that time, he would have to be very stupid.
Spock obviously knows more than enough about Human culture. He just pretends he doesn't, or he criticizes Humans for their "illogical" ways, because he is a half-Human who has loads of identity issues and is trying desperately to be the most Vulcan Vulcan ever.
People can't be attracted to completely different people? Happens all the time. How come Kirk fell in love with a strong activist like Edith Keeler (also, incidentally, a brunette white woman) as well as with a childlike blonde android Reyna, and submissive Native American tribal princess Miramanee? Why be inconsistent?
Spock didn't have to be her ultimate fantasy for her to be attracted to him.
Good you brought up the M-113 creature and 'fantasy man', that reminds me. How about this possible interpretation (which occurred to me when I watched the episode, not the first, but the second time):
Uhura is not joking when she says she is tired of hearing the word "frequency". (Funny that this scene was in the first aired episode. Those lines get a new meaning when you've seen all of TOS, and you know that saying "Hailing frequencies open" is the only thing she does in most episodes.) She is a very serious professional, dedicated to her work, but sometimes, like everyone, she feels a need for some romance in her life. (In fact, this may be seen as reflecting what happens to all of the crew in the episode: they've been in space for a long time, and many of them probably haven't had any sex or romance lately; and the M-113 creature is using their erotic fantasies to get to them.) Or if not that, then maybe just a bit of flirtation. Spock is someone that she finds attractive and intriguing (which doesn't mean that she is in love with him or anything that serious), maybe even more so because he is stoic and emotionally distant, but she's aware that he's unlikely to respond. She tries to flirt with him, maybe not really hoping for much but trying to get some sort of reaction from him. Of course she can only do that if she is teasing him - what else is she going to do, get all mopey and whiny like Chapel? Haven't you ever seen someone tease a person they find attractive, making a real attraction easier to show by pretending to be joking? Happened in school all the time.(I also find it more likely than the idea of Uhura pretending to have an interest in Spock just in order to mock him - that would, to me, feel nastier and not so friendly.) She still gets annoyed with him for his typical unresponsiveness - it's probably not a coincidence that. just seconds later, she gets really angry at him over his lack of emotional reaction to a crewman's death (at least I presume that she doesn't normally berate him for his unemotional behavior on every occasion, as they've certainly known each other for a while and his personality is not new to her).
Later on she meets the M-113 creature. It reads her mind and presents an image of what she thinks her "ideal man" would look like (it's obviously not a real person; she thinks he's a crewman, but she hasn't seen him before). Some time before, she was frustrated by Spock's unresponsiveness. Spock is an alien, from a different culture, as different from her as anyone on the ship can be, since everyone else on the ship is Human (which can also make him interesting and exotic to some Human women, as Uhura's song in "Charlie X" suggested.) And now, how was she imagining the man she would have a relationship with? Human, of African origin just like her, even speaks Swahili... in other words, as similar to her as possible. And also very obviously interested in her. It actually makes perfect sense that, after having had another confirmation that a relationship with a Vulcan could never be possible, she would start thinking that what she needs is someone she has a lot more in common and who would be perfectly suitable for her in every way.
Wow. Sounds like a discussion two women would have over a "Sex and the City" episode. I watched Trek to get away from that kind of thing. Lo and behold there is NO ESCAPE for us.
