Dear Alexander:

June of last year you wrote: “there’s this girl I kinda have a crush on so Monday… (she) was looking at me while I was staring into space… looking at me & smiling… last Friday I went out with my friends and .. I saw a guy looking at me but then he looked away… I am guessing she saw me at the mall and was talking about me and maybe that’s why he was looking at me”-

when you see a person from a distance, if the person looks at your direction, but not at you individually, not even noticing you are there, it looks like he or she is looking at you individually while they are not. It is only at close distance that you can trust the person to be looking at you individually.

It is similar to that: you sit in the audience of many people looking at a person on a podium, or a stage, talking to the audience. The speaker is looking at the audience, not seeing individuals. But for every individual in the audience it looks like the speaker is looking at him/ her individually.

After believing, likely incorrectly, that a person was looking at you, you then assumed things which are probably not true.

Same thing in this thread, a year later: “I saw the girl .. sitting at the table.. looking over at the counter… so I guess she doesn’t wanna see me because I keep seeing her boyfriend at the place I work”- You think she saw you but maybe she didn’t. And then you assume things that are not likely to be true. It is not likely, if I understand you correctly, that the girl asked her boyfriend to pick up food in the place you work so to show you that he is her boyfriend. He probably picks food there because he likes the food and not because of trying to make a point to you.

Reads to me that you tend to think that people look at you when they don’t, trying to communicate to you something that they are not, and then choosing their actions so to communicate something to you.

It is important that you address this, maybe in short term psychotherapy, so to correct distortions of thinking and understanding.

anita