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Help with getting over infatuation


Laluna14

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Hi all,

 

I consider myself a spiritual person and have been in different meditation groups following a certain teacher for a number of years. I've noticed a pattern of falling into deep crushes with guys in these groups, some single, some not. But in all cases it's been unrequited. Because we meet and I'm contact with them regularly it tends to just grow out of hand and also we never meet outside of these sessions, so there is never any chance really for anything to be resolved. It's quite a conundrum. It seems whenever an attractive guy somewhat near my age is spiritually inclined and tends to be nice to me, because in these groups these guys are that way, I take it the wrong way and it evolves into this whole fantasy that just overtakes me.

 

I've witnessed this pattern in myself but I seem to be completely powerless against it. I tell myself not to have these feelings but it's no use. The latest guy, it's been going on for years. I haven't been a regular member of this group. He is one of the long standing, "hard core", serious followers. He lived in another city but would travel to our centre for meetings so I'd see him every now and then. I thought he was attractive but that was about it. Maybe a couple of years ago I started going to some weekend retreats and being more involved and so I interacted with him a little bit. Mostly it was just brief conversations here and there. We would be involved in preparing the meal or doing some project and would talk a little. But I really know nothing about him. I don't know quite when things shifted but there were some times at a few of these retreats where we would lock eyes from across the room. It was one of those situations where your gaze meets but it was so intense for me that I had to look away. After that any of those brief times we would talk I would become so flustered. I'm sure I was probably blushing. Then my crush started to sky rocket and I felt increasingly awkward and shy around him. Things have continued this way off and on for the past couple of years now. Recently he moved to the same city as me, I believe to be more devoted to the spiritual practice, so now we see eachother more often.

 

We sometimes sit beside eachother and our hands will brush. I can sometimes feel his eyes on me and I'll look up and we'll have one of those moments. He'll ask me to pass the coffee and we'll smile at eachother and have this... exchange of energy is the only way I can put it. It's probably all in my head but to me it feels very real like I can sense his energy whenever he is near me.

 

But that is all it ever is. Every time I see him, I get those butterflies in the pit of my stomach and my heart starts racing. Last night we had one of those meetings and I felt like those endorphins were just coursing through my body and like I couldn't breathe. I kept thinking that maybe I was in love with him. All I could think about was how much I wanted to hold his hand or give him a hug. To tell him that I'm on his team and have his back. I know this is madness. I know I don't even know this person. And I also know deep down there is no hope for anything. That this could go on and on this way for another few years and never lead to anything outside of this group. He is on another level than me in terms of his knowledge of the teachings and his spiritual understanding. I feel like he is also so devoted to this practice that he is pretty much like a strict disciple or monk. I could never crack the surface. I wouldn't even know how.

 

I don't know, I go to these groups with a sincere aim to work on my inner self and to achieve some state of peace and every time I find myself getting completely carried away with my infatuation. I'm 44 years old and I'm so tired of having crushes that never lead anywhere and never blossom into an actual partnership. It just leads me to question my own self and whether I'm just being controlled by chemicals in my brain.

 

I just needed to write about this because I've felt so emotional like I'm about to explode and I have no one to talk to about this. It's so hard when you have all these feelings and there is nowhere for them to go!! And like I said, I can tell my brain a million times to be rational and not get out of control but it doesn't matter, it happens every damn time!! I'm just a slave to my emotions and infatuations. I've considered leaving the group but I don't really want to do that because aside from all this I do get a lot out of it. I do feel like this is a major distraction however. I just need help with it I guess is what I'm saying but I don't know how.

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You have all the power in the world to change self-defeating patterns when you're ready to. Get to a doctor MD for an evaluation . In middle age things can start happening that may need to be looked at. It may entail exploring it with a licensed qualified psychologist and taking responsibility for cocooning yourself off from available people.

I've witnessed this pattern in myself but I seem to be completely powerless against it. I tell myself not to have these feelings but it's no use.

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I see...Unreciprocated interest is everyone`s life story at some point, believe me :friendly_wink:. Don`t lose hope. But I can see something here....Would you be able to answer those questions:

 

What is your marital situation? Ever had kids, or want to have a family?

Could you plese explain to me what kind of men are interested in you? How is a typical man that hits on you like?

How does your dream man look like? (mostly qualities of character)

 

 

I want to get somewhere with this trust me....:D

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I went back and read through some of you older threads. I was interested to see that you've had this issue for 6 or 7 years, but that you've also managed to date during that time as well.

 

I haven't read through all of your threads, but it seemed to me that when you date, you have pretty good instincts and are able to shut things down when they start to get murky. I'm talking about the Italian guy here, and the guy with the high sex drive.

 

When you are dating, do you also entertain these unrequited crushes or do they diminish in intensity?

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I see...Unreciprocated interest is everyone`s life story at some point, believe me :friendly_wink:. Don`t lose hope. But I can see something here....Would you be able to answer those questions:

 

What is your marital situation? Ever had kids, or want to have a family?

Could you plese explain to me what kind of men are interested in you? How is a typical man that hits on you like?

How does your dream man look like? (mostly qualities of character)

 

 

I want to get somewhere with this trust me....:D

 

Hi there, thanks for your questions. Uneciprocated interest seems to be my life story. :) But thank you for telling me not to lose hope.

 

I'm not married, never been married. Do not have kids and am now too old to have children of my own. I'd be open to being involved with a man with children however as I do like kids.

 

Honestly, it's been a long time since I felt any man show interest in me. I think once you get over a certain age, men stop showing interest, flirting or hitting on you. At least that has been my experience since I reached 40. In the past the men that would hit on me, generally were not ones that I was interested in for whatever reason. I do think I seem to go for the shy, quiet type who don't go out of their way to express interest. Qualities I'm looking for are a kind heart, spiritual, open and communicative, good sense of humour, intellectual, cultured, sensitive. Someone who I can talk easily with and share life's moments with together. Looks are not as big of a thing for me but of course I can't lie and say that it isn't a factor. I don't have a particular physical type though. I do tend to like men who are as tall as or taller than me, and I'm a tall person. Also not really into muscular types.

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Hi Jibralta. Thanks for reading. I guess the difference is that when I've dated it's been someone I met online and we meet in person and see if we like eachother. So it seems different to me than these unrequited crushes that usually come about because I'm in proximity to a guy. I think the spiritual aspect comes into play also and is something I find attractive. There have been situations with guys who I have found attracted and was interested in getting to know and they were not wanting to commit or seemed unavailable or not that interested or just wanted sex. In those cases though usually it did not go on for too long and ends eventually, either by him or me. With these spiritual groups because I'm part of the group and I go regularly and see the guy off and on, it just goes on and on. I forget about it for a while but then will see him again and all the crush feelings come flooding back. There is no resolution like there is with the dating.

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I'm sorry but this spiritual group stuff you are doing sounds like it's more toxic and damaging to you than you care to admit. It's simply not normal for a woman your age to get lost in this kind of romantic fantasy world time and again for years at a time and the triggering factor by your own admission is the spiritual group. Maybe take a step back and rethink what you are doing. It sounds like it's literally stopping you from forming healthy fulfilling real life relationships. You say that it's making you feel healthier but looking from the outside in, I don't see healthy and I don't see a woman who has fulfilling real life relationships.

 

What I'm getting at is that what is happening with you is a form of escapism. This fixation on fantasy, unrequited love, not quite reaching out or out of reach over and over again. It's a form of avoidance. You might want to explore why.

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Well to me it actually seems like you're lonely. I'm just guessing but I would think that getting all these crushes means you want to find a relationship and fall in love. So you're subconsciously projecting on all these guys. Are you sure you could never have a chance with any of them? Like, if you asked them to go out for a coffee sometime, maybe some would say yes? Or are you scared of making things awkward at those spiritual events if it doesn't work out?

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Hi there, thanks for your questions. Uneciprocated interest seems to be my life story. :) But thank you for telling me not to lose hope.

 

I'm not married, never been married. Do not have kids and am now too old to have children of my own. I'd be open to being involved with a man with children however as I do like kids.

 

Honestly, it's been a long time since I felt any man show interest in me. I think once you get over a certain age, men stop showing interest, flirting or hitting on you. At least that has been my experience since I reached 40. In the past the men that would hit on me, generally were not ones that I was interested in for whatever reason. I do think I seem to go for the shy, quiet type who don't go out of their way to express interest. Qualities I'm looking for are a kind heart, spiritual, open and communicative, good sense of humour, intellectual, cultured, sensitive. Someone who I can talk easily with and share life's moments with together. Looks are not as big of a thing for me but of course I can't lie and say that it isn't a factor. I don't have a particular physical type though. I do tend to like men who are as tall as or taller than me, and I'm a tall person. Also not really into muscular types.

 

Hey there!

 

Thank you for answering to my questions! Now, do you see a pattern here? I doubt there were no men in your life (or aren`t still) that have an interest in you. But since youu are always preoccupied in "hunting" men that are unavailable, you are thinning your chances down. I really need you to go back and analyze the men that did like you one by one and find what they had in common. Were they loud, fun loving extroverts maybe? I think that might be the case since you are highly attracted by shy ones. My grandma said : Always go where you are welcomed. Since I realized that I stopped feeling rejected by men that I HAD to chase and enjoyed being chased instead. Maybe you are addicted to rejection in order to validate in yourself a deep insecurity of yours i.e. I`m not attrective enough, I`m not young enough, I`m a failure etc. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy. It`s the same concept with women that go after married men. They SEEK rejection. So, open your eyes and focus only in the men that actually do like you and give them a chance! And you never know!:friendly_wink:

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You understand that you're projecting certain spiritualism onto these guys that imbues them with ideals that they don't really possess. This attracts you to them and has you creating fantasies about them that they never live up to.

 

I'd explore women's groups so that you can continue to socialize your spirituality but compartmentalize it away from romanticism. Then use dating apps to set up quick meets over coffee instead of investing in full dates. This allows you to meet a bunch of prospects on your way home from work, which compartmentalizes dating away from spiritual projections. Agree to keep the meets to 20 to 30 minutes, neither can corner the other for a real date on the spot, but either can contact the other afterward with an invite. If the answer is yes, the other responds, and if not, no response is necessary. You can just keep meeting people until you find simpatico.

 

This allows you to meet men 'cleanly' without projecting stuff onto them. Sure, natural odds are that there will be far more bad matches than good ones, but that's a level playing field for everyone and it doesn't disadvantage you the way that your private fantasies do.

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Well to me it actually seems like you're lonely. I'm just guessing but I would think that getting all these crushes means you want to find a relationship and fall in love. So you're subconsciously projecting on all these guys. Are you sure you could never have a chance with any of them? Like, if you asked them to go out for a coffee sometime, maybe some would say yes? Or are you scared of making things awkward at those spiritual events if it doesn't work out?

 

Hi Tinydancer,

 

Yes, I think that I am lonely. I'm also a hopeless romantic. I do want to be in love and find my partner.

 

I think in the case of this latest guy there is a chance that he may be interested. But I don't feel he would ever make any kind of move so it would be up to me. I don't know if I ever could muster up the nerve to just out of the blue ask him for a coffee. Also we're never alone together so I am not sure there ever would be an opportunity. I also am not sure he would even be interested in a relationship because of how devoted he is to the group. Also, if he said no or things didn't work out it could be very awkward.

 

Because of all those reasons I feel like it's probably best to pursue someone outside of this group that I have more of a chance with.

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Hey there!

 

Thank you for answering to my questions! Now, do you see a pattern here? I doubt there were no men in your life (or aren`t still) that have an interest in you. But since youu are always preoccupied in "hunting" men that are unavailable, you are thinning your chances down. I really need you to go back and analyze the men that did like you one by one and find what they had in common. Were they loud, fun loving extroverts maybe? I think that might be the case since you are highly attracted by shy ones. My grandma said : Always go where you are welcomed. Since I realized that I stopped feeling rejected by men that I HAD to chase and enjoyed being chased instead. Maybe you are addicted to rejection in order to validate in yourself a deep insecurity of yours i.e. I`m not attrective enough, I`m not young enough, I`m a failure etc. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy. It`s the same concept with women that go after married men. They SEEK rejection. So, open your eyes and focus only in the men that actually do like you and give them a chance! And you never know!:friendly_wink:

 

Hi proseyxi. You've definitely given me some food for thought. Yes, I do see a pattern for sure! I will definitely take your suggestion of looking at men I don't have to chase in the future. It would certainly make things easier because I know they are interested and don't need to spend all this time wondering. I think I need to be more open to those men and maybe ones I don't consider my type. I'm quite shy and quiet so that is why I thought that a man with similar temperament might understand me and be a good match. But who knows, maybe an extroverted, loud and fun loving guy might be good for me. I need to consider the possibility because my current pattern is not working for me. And I think it could be due to insecurity and setting myself up for failure. Thank you for your post and for this perspective, it's really helpful.

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You understand that you're projecting certain spiritualism onto these guys that imbues them with ideals that they don't really possess. This attracts you to them and has you creating fantasies about them that they never live up to.

 

I'd explore women's groups so that you can continue to socialize your spirituality but compartmentalize it away from romanticism. Then use dating apps to set up quick meets over coffee instead of investing in full dates. This allows you to meet a bunch of prospects on your way home from work, which compartmentalizes dating away from spiritual projections. Agree to keep the meets to 20 to 30 minutes, neither can corner the other for a real date on the spot, but either can contact the other afterward with an invite. If the answer is yes, the other responds, and if not, no response is necessary. You can just keep meeting people until you find simpatico.

 

This allows you to meet men 'cleanly' without projecting stuff onto them. Sure, natural odds are that there will be far more bad matches than good ones, but that's a level playing field for everyone and it doesn't disadvantage you the way that your private fantasies do.

 

Hi catfeeder. That is a good idea about the women's groups. I think it would help me to take men my age who are single out of the equation so I could continue to get the aspects of the spiritual groups that are good for me. I also like your idea about the quick coffee dates. Those are a good way to see right away if there is any potential or not rather than things going on and on, and as you say it's not this ongoing thing that I would obsess over like in the spiritual group. And it removes all this projection and fantasizing about something that doesn't exist which I know is not healthy. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

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When you live in your own head this much it is difficult for anyone to have a place in your life. When you are the author of a romance novel that you write all the parts and dialogues for, no real person fits. When you re-proportion this and the "spiritual" thing to accommodate real live men with real live imperfections, real live minds and hearts, ironically you'll find the love you are now blocking out living in this idealized fantasy world..

I'm also a hopeless romantic.
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