Can’t get him off my mind?

Hi everyone, it’s my first time ever really posting this and expressing my issue into words, so bear with me.

I have been with my boyfriend for 3 years now. However, prior to him there was a guy I was talking to. We were flirty and spoke all the time, but never anything official. It was a long distance thing. We sexted and stuff, but again, nothing official.

I knew him for years, and suddenly he said he was talking to girls and dating them. I was okay with it, and I felt that our friendship never had a defined meaning, because neither of us were honest about how we felt towards each other, so I understood. I took that as a sign to emotionally move on and that’s when I got closer to my now-boyfriend. However, the first guy sensed me becoming closer to my current boyfriend and kinda panicked, I guess. He booked a ticket and showed up in my city, unannounced, and asked me to hang out with him. I figured this was a weird, last ditch effort for him to stake his claim, and I never went. He had dated 2 girls by this time and told me “none of them could compare,” or “they weren’t you.”

After I told him I couldn’t come see him in person, he went back, and the communication dwindled down. My boyfriend and I became official, and then the conversations completely stopped. First guy had a hard time emotionally and went as far as to try to commit suicide. I did reach out to him during that time, and he said he wouldn’t. A week went by and he completely deleted me from everything.

This was about 4 years ago. The reason I’m posting this is because I find myself constantly thinking about him, and I can’t help but wonder what happened to him, or how my life would’ve differed if I went to meet him when he came to my home city. I don’t want to break up with my current boyfriend or anything, but it’s just an odd sense of curiosity. I’m very happy in my relationship, but I was just wondering if this was normal? I doubt he and I would’ve worked out, but the fact that he ditched so easily with no closure may be what’s bugging me.

I just felt that I had to vent somewhere about this. Thank you for listening. :)

Yeah, it's normal to think about old boyfriends. To some extent, I still miss the girls I dated 30-40 years ago. They were all smart and nice. Dating sucks in the way that you get to know people, and you may tell them things that even your friends and family don't know, and you're intimate and close with them. And you may have shared a year or two of your life with them. But then you break up, and there's a part of your life that's missing. And it's very rare that you can maintain a friendship with a former lover. Most of the time it's too painful. So they were in your life and then they were out of your life forever.

So it's all right to think about him. But it sounds like he had some emotional or psychological problems. Don't contact him. Everybody feels they didn't get enough closure at the end of a relationship, but if you think about it, you got closure. This guy had mental problems, which was probably why you found him on the Internet. Just hang onto your boyfriend and keep moving forward.

You need to block and delete this guy you've never even met. He sounds like a sick person with poor boundaries and someone who is unhinged.

He's not the problem, however. The problem is your current situation is obviously in poor shape and you are resorting to far fetched "what ifs" about some online guy with obvious psychiatric problems. Once you clear your mind of this distraction you'll be able to reflect on what's really missing with your current bf.

showed up in my city, unannounced. First guy had a hard time emotionally and went as far as to try to commit suicide.

This was about 4 years ago. The reason I’m posting this is because I find myself constantly thinking about him