Infactuation! Thoughts and opinions!

Forums: Relationships, Love, Crush, Lust, Long Distance
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I met this guy when I was 16. (I'm now 26) The first time we spoke I was completely enamored by him. We spent a few weeks together hanging out before he moved to another state. I felt like I was head over heels in love with this boy. We kept open contact and we would talk every once and a while (not a whole lot), every time he would visit we would hang out and make out but never had sex. I eventually moved to another state and we stopped talking and out of the blue he told me he was still crazy about me. I told him I still had strong feelings about him as well. Every time we would talk it would eventually stop mainly him pulling away. Eventually when I was 23, he contacted me saying we got to make this work. He talked to me every day on the phone for a month and decided to fly me out to see him (I knew that meant sex) I unfortunately had sex with him right away, (the physical attraction was way too strong). Throughout that trip he was so sweet and tried to buy me whatever I wanted. The initial plan was, to fly out and in a few months and move down there.

BUT when I got back home he became weird after a week, and began to say his phone was broken. Acted like a child and texted broken messages to me. I called him on a phone that was in his area code and he picked up. I was so crushed! I cursed him out and tried to crush his ego. After the fight we talked for a bit and he said he needed time to heal. (BULLSHIT I was so pissed) I told him not to contact me again.

A few months went by and he contacted me, we talked for a bit and then I eventually told him I could not do this. Then about 1/2 a year passed and he contacted me saying he missed me, and for us to at least be friends. Now we live in the same city, he wanted to hang out with me but I was very hesitant, and we ended up not hanging out. He is now with someone. The last time we spoke was about a month ago, he thought he saw me around the city. I responded no and then I asked him how he was, but no reply.

So heres the deal....

I am now 26 and since I was 16 I've been so infatuated with this guy it's truly agonizing! Especially since, we have never spent more than a month together or ever have been in a relationship together! He has never been far from my thoughts though, and now that we live in the same city well he has really been on my mind. i KNOW that I was just a fling to him, but something else tells me it's more, and then I have to tell myself there is nothing there because we never had a true relationship. AND What happened when he flew me out makes me sick to my stomach, but then I have this pulling sensation on my heart (stronger than my disgust for his actions), an aching feeling that won't go away when I think about him. It's like i'm addicted to the sensation he once gave me, the intense passion, the floating feeling when we kissed, the false fairy tale. An idea of him i suppose. Yet at 26 I don't know what to do about this feeling. Apart of me wants to forget him, and another part wants him so bad I can't even take it.
(more sexual than anything, but he also has amazing qualities that i look for in a man as well!)

So my question is...

What in the world should I do about this sensation?
(it usually passes, but then comes up again)
What was this, was it all lies, was it just a fling and I need to let go?
Please! thoughts and opinions on an outsiders perspective!

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You mention nothing about other men in your area, or about what you've been doing for the last decade, e. g. about 40% of your life.

I'll fill in the blanks a little bit - you changed. How do I magically know this? 'Cause everybody changes during that time of their lives. Did you go to college? Grad School? Leave home for the first time? Start working?

In short, you've been through a ton of changes, and this long-distance guy was the one anchor in your life. He was, to you, the only thing you could count on during the rocky seas of moving from adolescence to adulthood.

However, it's far more likely that he was never like that. Rather, you had a fantasy of what he was like. Up until now, you've never really seen him for extended periods and, even now, you don't. The fantasy that ten years later he remains Mr. This Is The Guy I Liked When I Was Sixteen is just that - it's a fantasy. You may have been a bit like that to him and then, when you flew out there, you were an instant hookup (sorry).

You said so yourself that he is with someone else. So whatever bullshit he's laying on you about seeing you around town or whatever? Fuggedddaboutit. It means diddly.

What's the remedy?

Go out and meet other people. Some of whom will be guys. Consider dating some of 'em. Will this guy come back?

If you're having fun with someone else, does it really matter?

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Reality always gets in the way, doesn't it?

You tried to get a 16 year old crush to pan out and it didn't work.
He never grew up.

So figure out what makes this guy so attractive and find it in someone else, because he is just not going to be there for you.

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Infactuation--is that falling for someone's line of BS?

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@jespah,

Well I've been in about about 6 relationships since then. I meant to say 18 not 16! We met when I was about a Sr. in high school.

Jespah, I'm at this point in my life where I don't want to be with anybody at the moment. I'm really working on loving myself. Even if I saw him I wouldn't want to be with him. I know he is in a loving relationship and I'm truly happy for him, but it's the desire for him that lingers from time to time.

As far as what I've been doing since then well... I'm currently in grad school and I'm focused on that aspect. I don't go out hardly at all (which could be apart of the problem, but i'm so busy as it is) I absolutely do realize it is an idea in my head of him, I realize I'm re living a fantasy in my head of him. But there is that, underlying feeling of could there be more? Could there be a true connection there? This fixation on what if's is what is probably also causing the desire to still remain. He was so similar to me, as far as arts and mentality goes. On top of that a charmer. I have yet to find someone to fit that.

So this is my confusion...
why does this feeling keep coming back? Even when I'm swamped in my studies at times I begin to have this ache in my heart, a desire for him, a craving if you will. I never act on these desires, I usually just let them pass and I'm fine. BUT then he contacts me out of the blue, I rarely contact him and well the thoughts of having him come back again.

I really don't know how to keep the desire for him away.
So Jespah, that is where I need some help? How to truly move on from something i never even had?

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@PUNKEY,

Punkey, I wish it were that easy. It is not. I found these qualities in others, but on a spiritual since every soul is completely different. Someone can have all the characteristics and attributes as one person, but have a completely different soul.

I have yet to meet a man to move me with such passion as he did. To where a simple touch of the hand can leave me trembling, heart racing and time altered. I have yet to meet a guy to move me like that! He has been the only one, and that is the FRUSTRATION!

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@peka,

Please re-read your OWN post!!!

This guy has been playing with you for years! Then when you do get together as adults, he gets vague.

You are in love with the past.

How are you HIS soul mate? Apparently he does NOT feel the same. You must accept that.

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@PUNKEY,

I NEVER said he was my soul mate Punkey. I simply said that every soul is different. I do realize that soul mates are a completely different thing from infatuation lol, and that is why my subject line says infatuation NOT soul mates.
and I know i'm in love with the past.

All I need help on is figuring out how to stop the tug on my heart, and thoughts of him?

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@peka,

Hiya and thanks for adding more background.

Why does the feeling keep coming back?

I'm guessing 'cause it's a nice feeling, to think there's someone wonderful out there and that you already know them.

Truth is, there is someone wonderful out there, and there are potentially several wonderful or proto-wonderful someones out there, but you either don't know them yet or you haven't cottoned onto their proto- or full-fledged wonderfulness.

Because you're busy living in the past. And you're busy with grad school and with life of course.

Feelings just kinda happen, and they can be good, or they can be sucky (to use the technical term Wink

) or somewhere in between. Deflect and delay, I say. So - deflect your feelings by continuing to be and remain busy. You need not fill every waking hour of every day, but it seems that your mind wanders at times, and it inevitably wanders toward this dude. So! Give it a few other places to wonder. I dated a guy, egad, it was in Law School and he was already a lawyer, and he had spent Law School, every single day, he would take an hour out (usually this was lunchtime) and would read a completely unrelated book. I think he read a bunch of classic works, too, so he went through Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy and the like. One hour, no more and no less. The clock would start at noon, read, done at one. He read a ton! And yes, he passed the Bar.

You can also deflect with physical activity. My mind tends to wander when I walk or run, so I do the music thing, but I've also found that if I am doing a lot of heavier physical stuff, I do need to concentrate on that. Plus you get lovely endorphins and a sense of accomplishment (which can also come from the reading trick).

Delay as in, time's gotta pass. Your studies get closer to an end, you get older, your brief time with this dude gets buried deeper in the past, etc.

Yanno, here's a question. Are you close to being done with school? If you are, it's possible that the upcoming transition is giving you anxiety, and you may be coping with that, subconsciously, by thinking of a pleasant past fantasy. Hmm.

Or if I'm wrong, I'll return my psychology degree to the U-Give-Internet-Advice University Degree store and see if I can get my money back. Wink

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@jespah,

Jespah,
That was very helpful!! I do notice when I'm on a strict routine jogging, eating healthy and meditating daily that I'm more focused on the things that I need to be focused on and really could care less about him. I definitely, love that wonderful feeling though that is true! BUT it isn't healthy. I do realize that, and actually since yesterday when I posted this my thoughts are definitely subsiding, I'm starting to not care again.

As for the coping subconsciously, I think you're really on to something! I will be graduating next year (so I don't think it's that) but I recently got out of a 3 year relationship with a guy who was verbally abusive. So that is why I'm trying to focus on staying single and healing myself. I do think that perhaps thoughts of my fling is a coping method of not feeling like I will ever find the right man.

AND WOW you know now that you say about transitions and coping, and holding onto the wonderful feeling. When thinking back at all the times that he contacted me, it was in transitions in his life even when we first met. When we first met he had to move from a city he loved, his girlfriend cheated and I was there. When he's dad got ill, when he split with a girl, or it wasn't working as smoothly as he liked, and recently when he moved back to the city where we grew up. He contacted me wanting to hang, and since I was in a relationship at the time I was hesitant and plus what he did to me. He found a girl and now he's with her. STRANGE! I suppose everyone does this, holding onto a certain wonderful feeling to cope with things. I guess we have to determine if it's healthy or not!

AND you know now that i think about what exactly triggers my desire for him, is when my life isn't going how I want it as well. Which is a lot lol (since i'm not an optimist lol!) Right now in my life, I feel a bit lonely, isolated, and well my love life isn't around (personal choice though). Today when I transitioned my focus onto my goals, I felt a huge lift off my heart and off thinking about him! And well now that you helped me come to this REVELATION:) I'm starting to not even want him even more! WEIRD! lol

SO THE QUESTION NOW IS:
I guess what really perplexes me is why the feeling is so strong after all these years? but I guess reliving a passionate moment could create strong desires in the heart...?
and...
what should I do if he contacts me again Jespah?
I truly don't want to keep this cycle going, because when his life starts to work out in times of trouble he pulls away from me, and well I'm left fantasizing about what if! (but i always let it go and i stop talking to him as well, but i'm left with a incomplete feeling) I am a woman after all, men seem to not attach to ideas as much!

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@peka,

/Frames psychology degree from the U-Give-Internet-Advice University Degree store. Places it next to driver's license found in Crackerjack box. Steps back to admire work./

Hey, I'm just glad it's helpful.

Memories can bubble up when we don't want 'em to, eh? Or when they are totally unhelpful. Most inconvenient!

Bonnie Tyler's song, "It's a Heartache" still reminds me of the Law School book-reading guy. And that was, egad, I graduated Law School in '86. I have also been married to someone who is not him since '92.

And I think nostalgia is fine. It's our pasts and it's a part of us; to deny it means to deny a part of ourselves. We can't all make ourselves into tabula rasas (rasae?). And we should not. This is who we are.

A complete starvation diet is not gonna work here, I don't think.

So, I am thinking the thing to do is what I'd also suggest re him contacting you again - delete his contact info. Block him if you must. But remove the temptation and the opportunity.

Yanno, back when we were all walking 6 miles to school every day, each way, uphill, in the snow, we would break up with people and, unless they were nearby or we went to school or work with them, we pretty much stopped seeing them. An occasional drunk dial might've crept in, here or there, but if we kept our hands away from telephones, we were fine. You get a chance to heal that way, and put a little distance between yourself and the event.

These days, there are a ton more ways to be in touch, but you can also block, and unfriend and make use of caller ID and the like. If I were trying to distance myself from someone or something, I'd do that.

And - you kids - get off my lawn!

Welcome to A2k.

1 Reply

@jespah,

Jespah, yep lol I've done deleting him, telling him not to contact me again before and NOW. . . I have never kept his number in my phone because I really have always wanted to forget about him since I never could have him. BUT he always finds a way to reach out to me again. I guess its my job now to just not respond or reiterate that we shouldn't keep open contact.

Thanks so much for your help, it helped A LOT!

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Infactuation! Thoughts and opinions!

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