Addicted to a Person

[nyc_guy2003]

Do you ever save her texts to re-read later, I mean like several weeks later? Because I've done that before. Like go through my sent messages and re-read entire conversations just to re-live them.

[TheyCallMeBruce]

Do you ever save her texts to re-read later, I mean like several weeks later? Because I've done that before. Like go through my sent messages and re-read entire conversations just to re-live them.

 

I'VE TOTALLY DONE THIS LIKE 30 TIMES. WE ARE THE SAME TYPE OF CRAZY!

 

It's funny how much of this stuff comes out as being universal now that we're feeling comfortable sharing anonymously. I would NEVER tell any of my real life friends about this stuff.

[Titania22]

I'VE TOTALLY DONE THIS LIKE 30 TIMES. WE ARE THE SAME TYPE OF CRAZY!

 

It's funny how much of this stuff comes out as being universal now that we're feeling comfortable sharing anonymously. I would NEVER tell any of my real life friends about this stuff.

 

 

From experience I know friends get bored of this stuff really quickly.

 

I am also thankful we now have places like this where we can share as much as we want, and generally there will be someone who is interested and responsive.

[TheyCallMeBruce]

I think I'm going to put an end to it. I just need to come up with a way to explain that doesn't make me sound like a jerk or a psycho, if that way exists.

[Titania22]

I think I'm going to put an end to it. I just need to come up with a way to explain that doesn't make me sound like a jerk or a psycho, if that way exists.

 

 

Then just be honest, tell her you love her. Because there is always that tiny chance she is interested, no matter how small, and in the likely event she isn't interested she will understand why you can't have anything to do with her anymore.

 

If you are thinking of cutting loose anyway, you have nothing to lose by being honest. It might even make it easier to let go.

[TheyCallMeBruce]

Then just be honest, tell her you love her. Because there is always that tiny chance she is interested, no matter how small, and in the likely event she isn't interested she will understand why you can't have anything to do with her anymore.

 

If you are thinking of cutting loose anyway, you have nothing to lose by being honest. It might even make it easier to let go.

 

She already knows how I feel. I've made no secret of it. I think she was interested, but now she isn't.

[Titania22]

She already knows how I feel. I've made no secret of it. I think she was interested, but now she isn't.

 

 

I'm sorry, I'm just a fan of the Grand "shoot yourself in the foot" gestures. I find complete humiliation help, i could be wrong though.

[Titania22]

What about a nice simple:-

 

"You know how I feel about you, and I can't do this just friends thing any longer. I either need you in my arms or out of my life."

[TheyCallMeBruce]

Honestly, if I thought she would find me humiliating myself for her to be anything but incredibly unattractive, I'd give it a try. I can't think about anything but wanting to be with her, and I feel like I'd literally do almost anything to get her to want to be with me.

[Titania22]

What about a nice simple:-

 

"You know how I feel about you, and I can't do this just friends thing any longer. I either need you in my arms or out of my life."

 

 

Just thought you might have missed this post Bruce. I don't think saying this is humiliating, and it isn't lying either.

[nyc_guy2003]

I've done this type of ultimatum thing before, a few years ago when I was in my early 20s. The girl decided that cutting all ties was the better way to go. I was in a state of severe depression for about 4 months and the only thing that snapped me out of it was that I met another girl that was very similar to her that I obsessed over for the next year or so.

[TheyCallMeBruce]

Just thought you might have missed this post Bruce. I don't think saying this is humiliating, and it isn't lying either.

 

It's not even that. If we could actually just be friends, then I'd be willing to at least try that. As it stands, I'm in this weird limbo thing, where she says she's taking things slowly, but it really feels like they've stalled. I really just want her to tell me where I stand.

[FreeNow]

I didn't read the whole thread but those interested might want to Google limerence.

 

One such page is http://www.stormtiger.com/collie/archive/addons/200402a.html

[Titania22]

It's not even that. If we could actually just be friends, then I'd be willing to at least try that. As it stands, I'm in this weird limbo thing, where she says she's taking things slowly, but it really feels like they've stalled. I really just want her to tell me where I stand.

 

Then I have no advice. I feel for you Bruce I really do.

 

@nyc_guy i wasn't thinking of it as an ultimatum, more as a statement of fact.

[TheyCallMeBruce]

I didn't read the whole thread but those interested might want to Google limerence.

 

One such page is http://www.stormtiger.com/collie/archive/addons/200402a.html

 

Huh. That's a pretty interesting article. So the suggestion is that this will likely be a temporary feeling? I wish I had some confidence in that.

[Titania22]

Huh. That's a pretty interesting article. So the suggestion is that this will likely be a temporary feeling? I wish I had some confidence in that.

 

 

I wonder how they class temporary, as I am going on 3yrs now....hmm

[TheyCallMeBruce]

Man, love sucks.

[smudge21]

The more I read about your situation Bruce, the more it seems to reflect mine and the girl I'm currently in full NC with.

 

Even though it was clear we'd never be the loving couple I wanted, everytime she'd text or make contact in any way, I'd be there - analyzing it and seeing more then there was. I could stop myself. Even at the start of this year when I decided to be a bit distant with her (we were back as friends, or at least trying to be) - she'd text every few weeks, really just to test the water and see if I was still around, still speaking to her. Of course I always was. A couple of texts between us and then nothing for another few weeks and I'd feel like **** as once again, I'd expected more and got nothing.

 

Like you I had to end it, especially when she announced wedding plans to her long term on/off boyfriend/fiance/housekeeper (whatever he is) and so a long goodbye email followed which said it all. We parted ways as we met, as friends.

 

Up until reading all these comments I really did think my feelings for this girl was love (I still do in a lot of ways), but it's making me question that now. This girl came into my life due to work and we really hit it off, but the warning signs were there (she lived with her on/off ex and was definitely not 'with' him at the time). A month of friendship and her chasing me followed. We got together but something inside me always prevented us going all the way (we stopped at most stations, but never reached that special destination if you know what I mean). I think it was the way she spoke of other ex's, how her only memory of them were of sex and being used for that. To me she meant more and I think that's what stopped me when at times it was clear she was more than willing. When it all ended and for whatever reason she got back with her ex, my feelings just kept growing for her. It wasn't about a desire to sleep with her, just a desire to be with her, spend time with her, be alone with her. Everything really. She became my obsession for most of last year. She became my addiction.

 

I look back on it all now and see the patterns with what people are saying here. I'm on strict NC but still think about her every single day, wishing she'd call, but the reality is that although she was interested, she wasn't emotionally interested. Sure, whenever we'd catch up it was clear she wanted to spend time with me (even with her fiance there) as we hit it off each and every time, but then give it a few days and there'd be the silence... until next time. So as much as I dream about her making contact, the reality is she won't as to her I was just a fling. To me, she was/is someone I fell in love with... or is it became addicted to?

 

Oh and yeah, looking back over old texts. That hurts man, seriously I've suffered that pain. I had hundreds from this girl and I used to look over the early ones when she was chasing me. To compare those to the various dull ones I'd get recently, it's like two different people. I deleted them all. Had to.

[welikeincrowds]

Now that I've written this post, I've come back here to the beginning to warn you to not read it, because it's a whole lot of unpractical thinking. I'm only posting it because I spent far too long writing it than I'd care to admit, and it would seem like such a waste to go through all that, just to not click on one little button.

 

:rolleyes:

 

I'm curious as to what all of this would be like if the love was not unrequited?

 

Would some of these behaviors be so bad?

 

(Saving texts is quite romantic....)

 

Would some of these behaviors mean the same thing?

 

(But it's an altogether different thing, a memory being cherished, rather than as a means to invent more pining....)

 

All of these interactions are framed in terms of what "I" can do to "get" the other, and let's think about that for a moment. (I'll refer to the other as the Beautiful Object -- but BO is an unfortunate initialism, so I'll settle on "beau" for short.) You have an uneven dynamic by definition: the beau is not asked to perform with you; you are asked (by yourself) to perform for the beau. There's a bit of a performance in dating, as there is in all interactions, but there is a distinction between "performing any act" and "performing oneself." Although we are all made up of conflicting pressures, there is still a core. If most of the time you wonder "how should I act" then you are bound to lose a sense of self, because you are trying to act "someone else's" role, in order to achieve something that you desire (rather than that imaginary "someone else"). And you will introduce some doubt as to whether you have succeeded in acting that role -- the metrics aren't yours, and the judge might not be you.

 

That's why I have to wonder about whether this is more susceptible to happen in people with low self-esteem. They have a tendency to believe that their natural selves are not valuable, and so they can comfortably accept the idea that they must practice and perform a role in order to live the desired life. It's a subtle distinction between "Will they like who I am?" and "I want to be the person that they like". The former maintains a sense of identity and the latter does not. The former will keep the beau in check and the latter will shape his life in order to meet some ideal. This is an impossible task, because that ideal is a product of the imagination. It does not belong to the self (it's supposedly the beau's desires), nor the beau ("I", the "addict", imagined it) -- so it belongs to no one at all, born from the imagination's fantasy image of the beau.

 

This mess could be avoided by acting the role of "you proper", but you've decided that the "you proper" will not work -- the act of "you proper" is not right to get what, incidentally, "you proper" wants. This is the curious other half of the framework: that "get" part. The interaction is based on achievement, and so there is created a potential "winner" or "loser" in the self. This appears natural -- after all, you desire someone, and either you get them or your don't -- but for the moment, let's not take that assumption for granted. For instance, is there any other way of looking at it, where the stakes for self-esteem are not raised?

 

Imagine someone who instead frames in terms of good emotions and bad emotions, good experiences and bad experiences. For every good, +1, for every bad, -1. All situations are approached in an effort to build the score higher. If things stay positive then the situation continues, if things go negative then the situation is ended. There is still selection, but there is no indication of a person's worth, just a response to the interactions.

 

This method may work for the "addicted person," and it may not. That depends on how well and honestly the "addict" is able to a) accurately score the positivity of their emotions, b) release custody over whether or not the interaction is positive or negative, and c) distinguish between fantasy and reality. A moment in your bedroom, flush with the memory of something your beau said or the way your beau touched her lip is perhaps a positive emotion -- but it seems that this should not be relevant, as it is an interaction between the mind and the heart, and not between the addict and the beau.

 

But is that not a beautiful feeling, desire? Is it not valuable, should that not earn a +1 on the positive scale? But what is that feeling, exactly, desire? You have a desire, and you want to make it happen. Perhaps we can say: you have a fantasy, and you want to realize it.

 

I think there is something poetic about the imagined conversation with your new lover. It's a sort of hallucination, isn't it? It's creative. It's the reason I like the word "libido" -- that the creative instinct in all things is driven by sexual energy. I'm sure it's unhealthy because it creates an easy conflation between fantasy and reality, and motivates unhealthy urges. Think of how many things can go wrong. Who could live up to a fantasy? Certainly not the lover, and certainly not "I". And a person with low self-esteem would certainly focus on the "I". "I" am responsible for whether or not this fantasy becomes reality -- not realizing that I am now double-bound.

 

But it would be nice to live our fantasies, wouldn't it? That's why I also think this problem happens to people with powerful imaginations and a creative will. Using the tenets of self-help, we focus our thoughts back on ourselves -- "addicted," "infatuated," "limerant" -- but artists, not knowing any better, came up with a term for that person: the muse. The muse inspires the artist, and the artist claims it's something special in the muse (that perhaps only the artist can see), the unattainable ideal that must be captured. The muse can never be captured -- because the artist is mortal and the beauty of the muse is ideal -- but more importantly, because once the muse is captured, the inspiration -- or, as Plato might say, vision into heaven -- is gone.

 

And this is why I have to wonder whether the feeling the addict so desires could exist were the love not unrequited.

 

But now that we are able to refer to these "addicts" as "artists", I am safe in using aesthetics to understand this further. I mentioned Plato earlier. Plato describes our "essence" as people as a soul that descends from heaven, temporarily enters a body, and forgets its existence in eternity. He also argues that beauty is an eternal ideal. When we perceive that something is beautiful, it is because it reminds us briefly of the true beauty our souls witnessed in heaven. The artist creates in order to search his soul for its eternal memories, and to leave placeholders for them in the finite realm.

 

Let's think about that, in the context of love. The beauty of your lover's soul reminds of you of the beauty deeply embedded in your own. For the artist to be successful, he will have had to witness beauty both his lover and in himself -- it creates an act, a moment that arises between the two -- a relation.

 

The unrequited addict/artist thinks he is close, because he can make out the contours of the ghost of beauty in his beau. Whether or not the beauty he is witnessing is actually the beau's or the addict's is up to debate, although the addict might never admit to the possibility that it all came from within. But it's all farce, because we've demonstrated above that the most potent experience of beauty is in a positive, mutual relationship, where both express their own beauty to each other.

 

And so I return to low self-esteem. The most potent experience is the most valuable to the artist, and is in fact what the addict/artist craves -- but could it not be what the artist simultaneously fears? What if the sensation proves to be overwhelming? Or, worse: what if there is no beauty in the artist's soul?

 

To the latter: of course there is, or there could be no addiction. But to the former, I don't know. As one poster commented here: there is something necessarily brave about falling in love.

Edited May 9, 2011 by welikeincrowds

[Titania22]

@welikeincrowds Against your suggestion I read your post, and found it really beautiful.

 

I found it interesting that you brought up "the muse", as ever since I was a child I have loved the idea of the muse, and would choose to be one if I could. All the years I was "writing my first novel", I would think of men I was attracted to as muses, to inspire me. Funny up until now I hadn't even realised that since I finished my novel at the end of 2007, I haven't thought about men as muses.

 

I won't disagree with your self esteem assessment, as I find self esteem ebs and flows, and although for me it is ever increasing, it can always go higher.

 

You wrote: Whether or not the beauty he is witnessing is actually the beau's or the addict's is up to debate.

 

And I would say, there is a concept that everything we see outside of ourselves is merely a reflection of us (i.e. we are the only thing that is real), and in that way all the beauty and ugliness, pain and joy we see, is just a reflection of us. So in that way, the "beau" in appearing so perfectly beautiful to us, is giving us a glimpse of our perfect beauty or as Plato discribed "that beauty that we witnessed in heaven".

 

From the point of view of being excessively imaginative and creative, I wouldn't change it if I could. I would rather see potential unicorns and minotaurs, and view life as a quest for some ultimate beauty (be that in any form it takes, grail, human or other).

 

If asked if I would choose to be insane. I would want to know if I would be happy. For surely if being insane would make me happy, then I would happily choose it.

[Eternal Sunshine]

welikeincrowds - that post really touched me...so beautifully written

[nyc_guy2003]

Sure, whenever we'd catch up it was clear she wanted to spend time with me (even with her fiance there) as we hit it off each and every time, but then give it a few days and there'd be the silence... until next time.

 

Exactly my issue here. Every time we get together we have a blast, but then it's like out of sight out of mind for her until xx number of weeks later when she decides to hit me up again. Quite honestly I am secretly hoping she'll just forget about me altogether; since I don't ever initiate contact it's up to her to keep this "relationship" going. I see her about an average of once a month -- after I see her the first couple of weeks are pure misery when we are radio silent, then by the third week I generally get better, then in week 4 she usually contacts me again which starts the cycle all over.

[TheyCallMeBruce]

I told her that we need to talk today. She's going to call me tonight when she gets out of the gym. Of course, like the lunatic that I am, I've been practicing what I'm going to say all day as though she were here. I really disgust myself lately.

[smudge21]

NYC Guy, you need to sort that out one way or another. The longer you leave it, the more you'll like her but also the more chance she'll find someone else and suddenly you won't be needed - or, like me, you'll have to sit back whilst she starts talking weddings. That was my time to say goodbye. Hardest thing I've ever done too...

 

Bruce, dude, blank it out of your mind and just go with the flow when she rings. The more you think about it, the more you'll expect it to go a certain way, the more annoyed you'll be when it doesn't.

[TheyCallMeBruce]

And... Nevermind. She just contacted me to see if I could hang out (I can't; I have to go coach), and then asked about my band's show this Friday, because wants to come.

 

I don't care how bad it hurts. I want this girl. I would run through Hell if that's what it took. I don't care how irrational that makes me, or lame or pathetic or whatever. If I have even a sliver of hope with this girl, I'm going after it with everything I've got. These little moments make me too happy to quit.