The Seven Year Obsession

[Matt88360]

Okay, I just joined here, but there are a disturbingly high number of similarities between me and the other people on here (at least as far as the categories are concerned), so I want to explain something that happened to me once.

Perhaps it goes without saying that I have never had any friends, only lots of acquaintances. I had this one acquaintance in high school that I got along with very well. Then right after graduation, I suffered a nervous breakdown because of some unrelated family issues. On a sudden I tried to maintain contact with this acquaintance after we graduated, but because I was in a really terrible state of mind, he resolutely told me off, and we haven't had any substantial contact since.

This was in 2006, so it's now coming up on seven years ago. The problem is I cannot forget about this guy.

It's not an attraction; that much I know. During high school, I misinterpreted my own intentions, thinking it was one because I don't know what friendship is about or what a desire for a friend is like. Then it became one for a while but isn't one now. Throughout all of this I can't move on.

Has anyone had experiences like this: where they cannot let go of someone whose already long gone? I don't mean the bad social disaster; that's a separate issue, and doesn't bother me as such anymore. Just the person involved in it. And why someone with such a distant connection? It's not like a freaking dead relative. Has anyone ever heard of things like this, or experienced it?

 

[WishingICould]

I've felt like that. I've even maintained friendships with people i don't even like just so i'm not alone. I think when you have social anxiety, when you do find somebody you feel a connection with you cling to them because it's so hard to connect with people that when you finally do find somebody you find it harder to let that person go.

 

[JohnnAY]

Yea, I have as well. Maybe it's because you think very highly of him and you value his opinion of you. I know that's the case with me.

 

[Matt88360]

Just out of curiosity (and if you don't want to answer, that's fine), but you've had an obsession like this that lasted years?

In my case, I think some of it was imagination: thinking it would have been cool if we actually were friends. Then when it blew up in my face, I couldn't get past that. Like it was the point where fantasy and reality collided in a big horrible disaster.

 

[WishingICould]

Well, he and i slept together but i was never his girlfriend. We were just "friends", that's what he called us, but he'd always come on to me when we were alone. I don't talk to him anymore and haven't seen him for over a year but i still think about him. He recently tried to contact me but i ignored him.

 

[Matt88360]

Believe it or not, I actually heard they found out that when people sleep together, they make a psychiatric connection that makes it hard for them to separate. (It's one of the many reasons sex is best kept in marriage, but that's neither here nor there.) My point is that in your case, it might have something to do with that. And of course, if that was the first time that happened for you, that's another reason to remember. They say everyone remembers their first time.

In my case, though, this clearly did not happen. There was never any funny business at all, in any way at all. Which is part of why this is strange.

 

[jaim38]

I was obsessed over a crush for about 4 years. I've never directly spoken to him, I've only admired him from afar. Sometimes, I swear I heard voices that sound like him (could be hallucinatory). That was probably the longest I've ever been obsessed over anybody. Anyways, after he rejected me, I got over him. I realized I have never loved him, it was just a crush. Heck, I don't even know him.