Yesterday #englishrosiee reviewed the movie Obsessed, a movie with a seemingly overdramatic Fatal Attraction copycat kind of story. This review reminded me of the times when I used to live in my head and have my own crazy crushes.
You can’t really blame me! I was in a former girls-only school and then I attended a mostly female faculty. Even though I did karate, available men who weren’t trolls were rare. This meant that every man who looked somewhat decent and had something to say seemed like the One to me.
Perhaps you can relate to such lack of male prospects or you have some other issues. Whether you’re simply imagining your life together with someone you don’t really know or you’re in some kind of a relationship that’s not satisfactory to you (you’re the other woman, a backpocket girl, someone’s booty call operator) there are ways to get over someone. None of my tips will help, though, if you’re not willing to face reality. Do you really want to stop obsessing over someone? Then read on.
1. Realise that it’s not going to happen
If it hasn’t happened for a while, it’s probably not going to happen. Yes, there’s a slim chance it still will but you shouldn’t be living your life waiting for some scraps of love. Whoever you fancy clearly can’t appreciate the person you are or thinks you’re not a match.
It’s your job now to realise thats it’s not going to happen. You can be sad, angry or whatever you feel is an appropriate emotional response to this situation. The first step to recovery is a reality check. If it breaks you to think that it’s never going to happen, do what I did with quitting cigarettes. Try not to think about the word never. Focus first on today and then on the next month. Seeing that you’re still single today, you may start a Tinder profile and chat to a few guys.
2. Stop fantasising
One of the biggest problems with crushes is that often you don’t really know the person, you’re obsessing over. You know how they look like, maybe you’ve spent some time with them, but you don’t really know who they are. This is just perfect for your imagination to fill in the gaps.
Can you honestly say that you know your crush? You may feel you do but if you truly compare what you know about them from what you saw and what you simply imagined thanks to wishful thinking, it’ll soon turn out that you’re obsessed with your idea of that person rather than with the real individual.
How to stop fantasising? Try mindfulness meditation, sport and keeping busy. Every time you catch yourself fantasising say: it’s just a fantasy. Focus on something else. It’s difficult in the beginning, but it gets easier with practice.
3. Explore your options
If in your head your crush is the One, it’s difficult to explore other options. Force yourself to do so. Explore online dating and say “yes” to an organic date. You don’t need to marry the person you’re going out with, it’s just good for you to realise that there are other men out there who are interested in you.
With time one of these men will feel interesting enough to go on a second date with. Eventually, you’ll forget about whoever you were obsessing about. You don’t need to believe in it, to see the results. You need water under the bridge and time. In fact, LOTS of both.
4. Don’t indulge in your obsession
This means you’re not allowed to indulge in any way: no stalking, no picture likes, no engineering being around your crush. If you can’t unfriend this person on social media, unfollow them. You don’t need a constant reminder of their existence in your feed. Avoid hanging out where you can see them, if you can. Don’t initiate contact, if contacted ignore, if you can. If you can’t ignore them, be non-committal.
Remember that every time you indulge in your obsession it’s more difficult to get back on the horse of healing. Hitting the rock bottom isn’t necessarily to get over someone (what does it even mean, if it’s just a crush, anyway?). It’s enough for you to see you’re wasting your time and decide you deserve better.
5. Get help, if you need to
For some people, help means talking to your girlfriends. Tell them you have a crush you can’t get over. Chances are they’ll set you up with someone or just spend time with you to keep you busy. They may also share their own stories, which will put your feelings in perspective.
For other people, help may mean serious help. I know people who’ve obsessed about someone they’ve slept with once for YEARS, hoping they’ll still get in touch and waiting for them. I also know people who kept being someone’s booty call for months, hoping the relationship would eventually evolve from it. A once off story like this doesn’t say much about you but if it’s your pattern, it may mean you suffer from a a sex and love addiction.
Life is short. If you’re a teenager you may feel like every week is a year long but after that it’s downhill. Time flies and you’ll soon die. Take your chances at being happy and don’t waste time on people not worth it.
It’s true that the only failed relationship are the ones you never have, but there’s a massive difference between giving a relationship a chance and obsessing over a person you’re not in a relationship with. Your sacrifice will not pay off. Do you really want to waste months or years waiting for something that’s not going to happen?
Hello, Rinsers! Any stories of love obsessions from your side? Have you ever been living in your head, hoping for a relationship that clearly wasn’t going to happen?
Rinse Before Use 
I was just talking about something related to a friend this morning. For me, the hardest ones to stop obsessing over are the ones that ended prematurely (or never got off the ground in the first place). The tough thing about these types of encounter are that you never got to see a flaw in that person so its easy to fixate on all the good things and fantasize over more. So, with this one guy I was obsessing over (still do on occasion) Facebook stalking did give me a clue as to a potential flaw (see it does have its uses). It allowed me to see that he was ‘interested in’ a GOSPEL TENT MEETING. Tfu tfu. Now, I’ve told my friends that every time they see any sign of me fantasizing over this dude and how he took me on a date to the library or whatever, they just need to tell my three words GOSPEL TENT MEETING. Its a good reminder of the reality of the situation. So, I think even if sometimes even if the key to why things wouldn’t work is not blatant, it is there somewhere you just need to be open to seeing it.
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I think you always see flaws, you’re just unwilling to notice them or focus on them. When you like someone it’s easy to look at them through rose-colored glasses. I remember one guy I had a major crush on was obsessed with team sports. Now, I’m not sure whether you know that about me but team sports and religion (Gospel tent meeting, really?) are comparable evils for me. Didn’t stop me from stalking this guy and fantasising about him for months.
And yes, with someone you’ve had potential with it’s always worse. We remember the positive more than a negative from short encounters so it’s tougher. Dating others is a good solution but sometimes there are no great prospects and it’s even more depressing. Time helps, for sure.
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Why the hatred for team sports? I’m not much of a team sport person myself…partly because I’m shite and always got put in goal as a kid but I don’t see how it could possibly come close to religion. I do dislike people who simply watch sport but do not partake in any form of exercise…but thats another story.
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I’m not sure how much of a craze team sports are in the UK but people in Poland are OBSESSED with football, even though our national team is almost as bad as the South African one, meaning, pretty bad. Even seemingly normal people would get into fights over their favorite teams and actually dislike anyone who liked the other team. I just couldn’t care less and the fanaticism reminds me of religious fanaticism.
For the record, I see nothing wrong with participating in team sports activities. It’s the watching that I find insane.
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OK that makes more sense. I also hate these kind of people that are purely obsessed with watching sport and drinking…but they rarely do exercise themselves. England has a lot of them too especially in terms of football. Fuck, we are the home of football hooligans. I’m sure these chavs have killed each other after match when their team loses. I can deal a bit better with Cricket or Rugby, also because fans tend to be bit posher/more decent.
Also, I think I’d get the obsession a bit more if they also played the sport.
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Oh yeah, dad bods all over. Sure, maybe in England the problem doesn’t affect everyone, just certain groups.
I even remember having our history class cancelled once to watch football on TV. I was like, but I like the history class more! 😀 Didn’t exactly make me Miss Popular.
There’s something to say for appreciation of someone who actually plays a certain sport. I can get a passion too but not an obsession. Someone disliking someone just because he or she likes that team or the other reminds me too much of how different players from team god feel about one another.
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