I'm obsessed with her

Hi there. I'm new to this forum, so let me start off by sending greetings your way. We'll get to the thick of the matter, soon enough...

Well I'm here basically because I'm obsessed with this one girl, and I have been, (to varying degrees) for the past 6 years. I hate myself for this, and think I'm weak, f'ed in the head, hopelessly left behind in the developmental curve...whatever, because of it. I mean, I should just MAN UP, and carry on with whatever's left of my dignity right?

I'm not exactly mr "lucky with the ladies", as you may deduct, something which causes me great mental anguish...yes I've had a few flings, even a 2 year relationship...I don't exactly think i'm unworthy, though, i think i deserve to be in a serious relationship with someone who satisfies my every need and want (smart, caring, open minded, outgoing enough to take me out of my comfort zone yet not enough to be annoying, funny...and yes, pretty...i do like the pretty ones i must admit....must be pretty), basically someone who is worthy of the time and effort, and makes me feel more confident by being "mine". I feel like im not good at anything in particular, and am too introverted yes, but even then i must admit that I do feel like i have exceptional qualities that make me worthy of demanding this, and am very capable of being a caring, loving, loyal partner.

Problem is, "this" is now equatable in my head, ONLY to THIS woman. What has made everything much worse, is that my advances haven't gone entirely unrequited by her; ours is a tumultous story which isnt easily summarized but i'll try...i went after her when i met her 6 years ago, but she ended up dating someone who was almost like a best friend of mine at the time for a year. I was deeply hurt, time passed however and i made my life away from her...however when we met up as classmates 2 years ago, i decided to try my hand at going after this platonic crush of mine...after the weirdest most convoluted courtship process ever (which included an incident involving misplaced insulting text messages from my part, a 6 month radio silence, a small cluster of dates, me leaving home for 1 year) we finally shared our first, passionate kiss nearly 7 months ago.

At this point, we were a couple in everything but name (her friends were aware of there being something between us)...or so i thought. However, she started going hot/cold on me, and wouldn't get very physical with me, obvious alarm signs...i still insisted on her, contrary to what common wisdom dictates. I mean, it felt like we'd been through so much, this wasn't some common crush now was it?

There's so many details to this thing, but well, suffice it to say, after i came home definitely, i still insisted on dating her....the first couple of dates were fine, but then the hot/cold, passive agressive thing just got worse and worse...it got to the point that i just HAD to tell her that i harbored feelings for her, to see whether she was serious or not about the whole deal. She didnt say anything of the ilk, just insisted that we should keep going out...we did, once more...but then she refused my next invitation with some lame excuse and....i got the message.

I was, once again, deeply hurt by this whole thing...i mean, to get so close to reaping the plumpest (in my mind) fruit, only to know it was all a lie...or maybe i had just tried to move too fast...I spent the next 2 months just feeling like hell. Eventually though, we ended up dating again, even after 2 incidents of utter disrespect on her part (nothing involving "cheating" though). I was happy as a clam just seeing her again...however, the hot and cold thing still went on...this is where the "remorse" part comes in...

I was previously upset by a trivial thing, so when i showed up to pick her up and she was late, i just couldnt help thinking about the whole hot/cold thing and lost it...keep in mind, i always had given her leeway on such things, considering her job is demanding, and well, women like to be waited on, but this time, i took it too personally and thought she was being disrespectful. When she got on I told her we werent going anywhere, and i reprimanded her on her behaviour. AFterwards i told her that i hadnt been kidding when i said that i had feelings for her, however, i only saw that she didnt care how she treated me, and questioned her on why she seeked me out again and again if there were no feelings on her part. She didnt say anything.

It's been 2 weeks and we've barely spoken since. I called her and texted her twice each but she kept ignoring me...it wasnt until a number of days ago, when i sent her a picture of some wildflowers saying that they were hers, that she responded, saying that I shouldnt waste my time (back when i freaked out i told her that she had made me waste my time)...later on i asked her out to a party of a mutual friend of ours after another friend told me to bring her along...she said that she wouldnt go with me, and asked me to stop messaging her unless necessary...pretty direct, hurtful words.

Now i know that common sense dictates that this girl has just been toying with me and didnt like me as much as i did her...but then again i think, maybe i was too brash, hurt her feelings, and made her deeply mad at me, keeping her from opening up in turn when i opened up to her, even if the stuff that triggered that opening up was pointless (she's quite the introvert too, and somewhat cold). Yes folks, that's the nature of obsession...endless denial.

What do you think is happening here? I know i should move on, but its truly hard for me to do so unless im certain of her feelings (or lack thereof).

Lucky girl. I miss having someone obsessed with me.

exquisitecorpse wrote:Lucky girl. I miss having someone obsessed with me.

Obsession: fun for the object of obsession (obsesee? Obsessesed?), not so much for the obsessed...

If she has directly asked you to stop messaging her then stop messaging her and try to move on.

Sometimes we see in people what we want to see. If they are close enough to what we want, we project ALL our wants onto them, and see them as the perfect person even if they're not. Clearly she is not perfect for you, or she would be treating you well. Sometimes it’s just impossible to convince your heart of that, even if your head knows it.

Everybody says you’ll get over it. I would say that too, but it isn’t true. What I CAN say is that you will be happy again; you will find someone else who treats you better and is more compatible with you and doesn’t play hot and cold. You won’t forget her, though, and every time you fall in love it will be because something about the girl reminds you of the first one. We are imprinted by first loves as much as baby birds are imprinted by their parents.

I once fell head over heels, at 15, for someone who seemed like everything I’d ever wanted. All was well for some months, but then he treated me cruelly. Years later I know that it was a miscommunication, that he thought I’d lost interest, and I thought he’d lost interest, and we were both too proud to humble ourselves and sort it out, so we both tried to hurt each other back. He drunkenly told me that the Alice Cooper song Poison perfectly described how he felt about me. I hadn’t heard it at the time but I did later, and one line says “I wanna hurt you just to hear you screaming my name.” But I was the wrong person to play games of pride with. I would never scream. He could have ripped my heart right out and I would not have made a peep. I suppose he and I both felt that it was better to be hated by each other than ignored, so we tried to hurt each other to get revenge. Many years passed and I remained haunted by it; eventually I figured out what had happened, but it was too late. I’d already run as far away as I could have without falling into the ocean, met someone else, built a life out west. But more importantly, some wounds never heal. I would never have been able to trust him again; I’d always be waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to become cruel again. I know now that we are too much alike to be together. Even though it was 13 years ago and I have since found someone who is perfect for me and treats me like a queen and whom I love more than anything, I still have dreams of him. In my dreams he is again the perfect man and we are drawn to each other like magnets, but in real life it isn’t so.

My best advice to you is to try and see her for who she is, not imagine her as the perfect person for you when she clearly isn’t. And when someone comes along who IS perfect for you, cherish that and never forget how special it is.

Hi,

Speaking as someone who has been prone to obsession in the past, I send you my sympathies. Your situation seems to have been made doubly difficult by the fact that the person you had feelings for gave you hope that they may be shared. It's much easier to dismiss the thoughts when there isn't a chink in the rejection you can find to pin your hopes on.

I noticed that you mentioned that this girl was initially in a relationship with a close friend and that this caused you a lot of pain. I might be way off here but I have always found that my obsessions have been more to do with my own lack of self esteem, rather than my actual love and feelings for the object of my affections. I know that it's always been particularly bad when I have been rejected initially. Somehow the actual person you have feelings for disappears as they become associated with the longing to be loved and for your feelings to be justified. I've also found that this whole bundle of feelings has literally just flipped from one person to the next. Also, once it's flipped and the blinkers come off and I see the actual person, I tend not to have any actual feelings for them at all, and in a lot of cases, didn't even particularly like them that much!

Six years is a very long time to have spent investing your feelings into another person - I know that this can make it seem almost impossible to give up, especially considering that your brain becomes wired to think of them automatically, the random thoughts that keep popping up about them can be difficult to control.

You seem to be really aware and quite brutally honest with yourself about the reality of your situation which in my opinion deserves much kudos it's is much, much easier to go on kidding yourself that your feelings are shared, that there really is hope, it's just circumstances keeping you apart etc.

I found that two things helped me massively. One was being treated for depression - this stopped the majority of my negative thoughts and allowed me to build confidence and other positive 'real' relationships which meant that I didn't spend so much time focused on my thoughts about my obsessee (? Dunno what the correct term is,lol) and the other was meditation. At first I thought it was a load of woo woo type rubbish but essentially all you are doing is training yourself to recognise your thoughts as they arise and then, keeping a clear mind, refusing to follow them. Helped me to learn to bat away the thoughts I was having almost constantly.

I don't know how your friends react when you talk about this girl but I had the misfortune of being surrounded by 'enablers'. All of them were lovely people but they kept encouraging me to have false hopes about my situation and we were all fairly codependant in re-inforcing one another's thoughts and obsessions. If you have any friends like this and are serious about moving on, you might want to tell them gently that it isn't helpful, as much as they are trying to boost your self esteem

I could be brutally honest about your situation but i think you already know the truth. If it helps, I am now actually in a real relationship and the difference between that and the feelings I used to experience are as night to day. The one thing I always think is that if I had stayed caught up in my obsessions I would never have known the truth as to how painful and almost meaningless they can actually be. Knowing the actual person you love, connecting with them and loving them for who they are, rather than what you need or imagine them to be is a amazing.

I know that in another six years you could either be in a real loving relationship, maybe, if it was what you wanted, even have a family of your own. Or, alternatively, you could be sitting still thinking about a girl you don't know that well and possibly wouldn't even like as much if you did. You sound like you need 'closure' but without spilling your guts and potentially putting yourself at risk, your not going to get it. I'm really sorry but i think she has already tried to tell you in her own way, she maybe just isnt very assertive. I guess it's up to you whether you can live with that or not.

Btw, I think you sound like a very smart, sensitive and insightful person, I've been around a lot of guys and believe me when I say those qualities are in short supply - you'd have a lot to offer someone who you were compatible with.

I'm really sorry if I come across as being very brutal or harsh, I just recognise a lot of what you are saying and the pain it is causing you - in a lot of ways wish that someone had been upfront and honest with me as it would have saved me from wasting years of my life on something that was essentially just an illusion.

Take care and good luck

MissScribble wrote:If she has directly asked you to stop messaging her then stop messaging her and try to move on.

i also think the same. life means move on. do not stop for anyone. right?