Getting over infatuation with someone who wasn't real

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This topic has 70 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 10 months ago by Anonymous.

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June 16, 2017 at 11:07 am #153688

laelithia
Participant

Smiley,
I so feel for you! I know exactly what that’s like, unfortunately. It’s as if these men have no idea what they actually want, so they come on so strong to us to see, and then suddenly they decide they don’t want us. It’s so unfair. I hope you feel better soon, we both deserve to heal!

Liz,
Thanks so much for sharing! I can totally relate to your story, and even how you feel about having them on social media. I’ve done this a few times with exes, deleted them and then ended up re-adding them because I wasn’t ready for the permanency of it all. I’ve found it’s only when I’m 100% over an ex that I can delete them from social media without regretting it.

I hope you feel better soon, we are definitely all in this together!

June 16, 2017 at 11:11 am #153690
laelithia
Participant
Hi Anita,

Thank you again for your support and understanding. I had recorded one of our phone conversations (just so I could remind myself rather than keep asking him the same questions), and he said this:
“It’s not like a fault or anything of yours. You are a good catch, really established, educated woman, you’re very attractive, you’re almost 30, you’re in your prime, got your life together, everything’s good. I just, don’t think it’s for me, you know? It’s for somebody else.” When I asked him how he knew that, how he was sure, he said “the few times we hung out it was like I don’t know, it was great don’t get me wrong, but that’s the time you get to gauge someone, feel them out, and to be honest, I just didn’t feel it. It’s not anything specific or against you, Lauren”. When I asked him if he knew this when he was making all those promises to me, he said “No, I was just in like, love land. I didn’t realize- I’m sorry, I apologize, I shouldn’t have played you so hard like that. I just… I don’t know. I guess I just wanted a sure thing. But I didn’t realize I was trying so hard. It’s totally my fault, I’m sorry.”

Even though he said it’s nothing against me, I of course begin to doubt myself and how I acted after our last visit. The first 2 visits seemed to go well and he seemed still very interested in me, it was only after the last visit when I went to see him that he changed towards me.

I’m not sure why, after all this time, and while he is clearly over it, that I am not? Why I can’t seem to let it go, or move past it. I know no matter what it can never go back to the way it was, and yet I long for that. I know that even if he ever were to change his mind again and want to be with me, it would never be the same and I could never trust him. Yet my mind is stuck reliving the good moments of the past, and I am angry that it didn’t continue that way.

I’m having such a hard time understanding that nothing I did or didn’t do could have kept this outcome from happening. Instead I keep replaying our times together, and wondering what would have happened if I behaved better? What if I paid more attention to my appearance? What if I played it cool and aloof rather than matching his eagerness and attention like many of the dating articles out there suggest?

These questions seem to haunt me, and are destroying my current happiness….
- This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by laelithia.
June 16, 2017 at 12:03 pm #153702

Anonymous
Guest

Dear laelithia:

He said: “You are a good catch… for somebody else… to be honest, I just didn’t feel it… I was just in like, love land…I’m sorry, I apologize, I shouldn’t have played you so hard like that”-

He told you that you are a good catch, not for him though, for someone else. Then he said two contradictory things: one, that he was in “love land” and the other, that he “didn’t feel it.” And then he said that he played you.

What do you think he meant by him not feeling it?

He used the verb “play”. Definition of play: to engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose. He said he played you.

What do you think he meant by that, playing you?

anita

June 16, 2017 at 12:59 pm #153710

laelithia
Participant

Hi Anita,

That is what has always confused me, too. The contradiction. I can understand that he “played” me, that it was never real emotion, that it was a game to him. But at the same time, he consistently says he felt his feelings were true at the time. This leads me to 2 conclusions:

1. He’s confused, and doesn’t really know himself, what he wants, or the consequences of his indecisiveness/confusion on others, or

2. Something I did (or didn’t do) caused him to either not continue developing feelings for me or to stop them all together.

Somehow I am more inclined (emotionally at least) to pay more attention to the latter reason. I think it’s because I have so much “evidence” that I can refer to. Ex. Many, many pictures of himself with captions like “Baby, I miss you!”, “you’re the perfect woman for me, we’re going to be such a strong couple”, “I’m so happy you’re mine”, etc. I think when I look back on those and all the messages he sent me, I begin to feel nostalgic and like I lost something truly amazing. However, my friend told me, and I believe its true, if what he was offering, he couldn’t consistently provide, none of it matters.

I keep trying to focus on that, but it’s so difficult. My heart longs for that “love” again, to feel so special, to have so much hope for the future, to build a life with someone I truly cared for. Somehow my fairytale dream/fantasy turned into a dark and miserable nightmare that I wish I could escape.

June 16, 2017 at 1:26 pm #153712

Anonymous
Guest

Dear laeithia:

It would be easy to conclude: yes, he played you, he was insincere. But not necessarily so. He may have felt sincere love for you at the time, later lost it and then figured to himself: I played her, it wasn’t so. He could have thought: it seems like I played her, therefore I must have. True, what your friend said: “what he was offering, he couldn’t consistently provide, none of it matters.”- it is really, at this point, an intellectual pursuit, trying to figure out the sincerity of his feelings at the time, and what happened to those feelings. It is an intellectual pursuit that you and I are engaging in, not him. And so, it doesn’t matter: this pursuit will not lead to him figuring it out and maybe coming to the realization that he loved you and loves you after all.

The longing on your part for this kind of love that he expressed temporarily, that is an ongoing longing that far exceeded the duration of the actual love expressed, now long ago.

Regarding #2, you doing something to cause him to lose that feeling- now that is clearly to me an untruth, simply because you well described a pattern on his part, before and after you. What did he say about a woman later on, “she may be the one”- remember?

You believe that you did something wrong, some thing or some things that caused him to lose that feeling. This is your belief. Children believe they are the cause when parents don’t love them. Children see themselves as the cause, the reason. I am thinking this core belief of yours was born in childhood and it operates here.

anita

June 16, 2017 at 2:04 pm #153716

laelithia
Participant

Hi Anita,

I think a large part of the reason I can’t let go, is that we still talk. I thought it would help me come to terms with the way things are now, rather than they were before, but I don’t think it is helping. He’s told me now that he is no longer even trying to date women, just “sleeping with them”. He openly admits that he has issues he needs to work through, but that he doesn’t seem ready to stop what he’s doing to figure it out.

In my dreams, I fantasize about a reality where we continued being infatuated/in love (whatever it was) with each other, that somehow he or I moved so that we could be together, that we began living a life together. We were involved in each other’s lives, we were close to each other’s friends and family, we became a team. He never stopped looking at me the way he used to, he continued to love to make me happy. None of the bad ever happened, and we are happy together.

I’m beginning to realize that I’ll never really know or understand why that dream will never happen, yet my mind longs to understand, almost as if I did, then it would all make sense and the pain will go away. But I know it’s not true.

All my life I have longed for a love I did not feel I received, and this was by far the closest I’ve ever gotten. Which in itself is sad, and honestly quite pathetic. I’ve even tried to acknowledge this with my parents, especially my mother who’s love I’ve felt has never come naturally, but it doesn’t seem to help. Instead, I have a hole, a deep longing that never seems to go away. I feel I must be an easy target for men like him, who come on strongly for whatever reason, and am even more empty when they leave.

He knew about my past heartbreaks. He promised never to “mislead my heart”, and yet he seemed to have done just that. I know of his pattern now with women, but it’s still so hard for me to believe that what we had was not special, that it’s par for the course for him. But it was special to me. Embarrassingly so. I don’t think many women would be as distraught as I have been from such a short romance. Yet I find myself absolutely crushed, that for the very first time in my 28 years of life, I finally felt satiated, that I had the love I always wanted, and just as quick as it came, it was gone.

One thing I found quite sad was that when I think of him, when I miss him, more than his physical presence, it’s the “virtual” him I miss. I miss the constant attention, validation, and hope for when I would get to see him again. It’s the dream I miss, rather than the reality of that dream. That is a scary thought, but really, in this moment, right now, I miss the excitement, the thrill of wondering when I’d see my “dream guy” again, I miss him texting me what I was up to, I miss seeing his face on my screen.

That is sad, isn’t it?

June 16, 2017 at 2:31 pm #153718
Liz
Participant
Dear laeithia:

I can relate to almost everything that you say! When it came to my first love I kept fantasizing about him dreaming about scenarios that would never happen because he had a new girlfriend and moved on. I was heartbroken and wanted things to go back to how they were knowing that it would never happen. The strange thing was that I wasn’t missing him. I was missing the him he was in the past. I missed the attention, the texts, the talks, the him he was virtually.

If anyone asked me if I wanted a relationship with him, the him he was today I would’ve said no. I longed for the past to be present again, not for the present to turn into a positive future.

This kep going on for 4 years until I met the guy I mentioned in my previous post.
But you see, I learned something about myself and this could apply to you as well. Yes, it hurts a lot because my fantasy was going against reality and whenever I would talk to him or even see him I wanted my fantasy to become reality. I wanted it so it could fill up the emptiness that I was feeling.

I soon realized that step one was to quit talking to him.
Step two was accepting reality.
Step three is to move on.

Most people would say that moving on is about forgetting that person, or only remembering them from time to time as part of your past, in which I agree but also disagree to.

the definition of moving on to me is being in a place where you no longerant your fantasy to become reality. A place where you no longer have hope and are content with it. Moving on to me isn’t about forgetting that person or letting go of all your fantasies.

In fact, some people can’t seem to stop fantasizing about a certain person untill they meet someone new. This doesn’t necessarily mean hat they haven’t moved on yet. Humans have the ability to get distracted. There just wasn’t a big event or impact in their life, at least not big enough for them to focus their attention on someone/something else, therefore they keep fantasizing about a certain person.

To give you an example: I stopped talking to my first love, I then accepted reality: It just won’t work out. I then kept fantasizing about them to keep my mind satisied, I then snapped back to reality and after a few months I no longer got hurt by seeing him or his girlfriend even when I still fantasized about him. I just no longer felt the need to make my fantasy become reality.

Bottom line: I fantasized about him texting me, looking up to me and what not, thanks to this my mind got satisfied byt the thought of him texting/talking to me so I no longer felt the need to make this fantasy reality. I no longer needed him to actually talk to me.

I hope that I make any sense, to be honest it’s quite complicated and hard to explain.

Oh, and you have no idea how much I relate to your phone call! I think that he thought that he loved you, and meant whatever he said at the time, but as time passes he snapped out of that romantic bubble only to realize that his feelings weren’t genuine, therefore he did played you but unintentionally. You did nothing wrong and it wasn’t you, it was him.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Liz.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Liz.
June 17, 2017 at 9:28 am #153782

Anonymous
Guest

Dear laelithia:

Our emotional experiences of life all happen in the area between our ears, in that relatively small organ, our brain. Without it, we would feel and know nothing.

What you experienced with this man was true love, this is what it felt like to you and what it meant to you. This was a very powerful experience and its power is still strong.

The fact that the “dream guy” is not real (as in the title of your thread: “Someone who wasn’t real), means nothing to your subjective experience in-between-the-ears, and that experience was again, true love.

You wrote: “I don’t think many women would be as distraught as I have been from such a short romance”- many women would be as distraught, probably all, if they experienced true love during any length of a romance.

You wrote: “I have a hole, a deep longing that never seems to go away.”- this hole, this longing was temporarily satiated and there was no better feeling. No wonder you miss that feeling.

A worthy objective would be to satiate that longing with not only a feeling, a subjective in-between-the-ears experience, but with reality to fit the subjective experience.

anita

July 1, 2017 at 8:49 am #155916
laelithia
Participant
Hi Anita,

I have been doing my best to take your advice, to fill the hole with “reality to fit the subjective experience”, but I suppose I’m at a loss in how to do this. I’ve tried dating again, but I quickly become discouraged that it doesn’t feel the same/as good as it did with him, and fearful. He promised me so many times he wouldn’t break my heart, that he would always be there for me, that I was the one for him, that I am terrified of this happening with anyone else. He broke all those promises to me. One day, I broke down and sent him the pictures of the texts he sent me, promising never to hurt me, and he said cruelly to get over it, that it had been 2 months already. He said we shouldn’t be friends anymore, that I was only trying to prove to myself that I could keep a man interested, even as a friend, but that he was not. I know I set myself up for that, but it still hurt nonetheless.

I feel so stuck, so damaged, and hopeless about my future romantic prospects. Anyone I meet, I cannot imagine them being as wonderful as he was at the beginning. I can’t seem to find that connection with anyone else, they’re appearance, communication style, interest in me, etc. all seems to be less desirable than his. I see now that it was not real love on his end, but it was real for me. I have never felt that way about anyone before, so grateful to finally have that emptiness inside of me filled, that I was certain he was the one for me. It’s now been almost 2.5 months later and still I wake up every morning missing how things were. Feeling exhausted at the prospect of starting over with someone that won’t understand and care for me the way he did.

I’ve regressed back to wondering what would have happened if I had behaved myself better that last visit to his city when we were together, what if I had paid more attention to my appearance? I was lulled into a false sense of security with him so early on, but in reality, it was the early stages of dating and I should have presented myself better. Anyway, I have accepted that it is over, but any time I have alone, I am reminded of the emptiness I have always felt, only now it is even larger without his affection.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by laelithia.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by laelithia.
July 1, 2017 at 9:42 am #155928

Anonymous
Guest

Dear laelithia:

Welcome back to your thread. The objective I stated to you in my last post was: “A worthy objective would be to satiate that longing… with reality to fit the subjective experience” but it is not possible yet because you did not yet meet a man with whom a loving, healthy relationship is possible. So I will state another objective that you can possibly work on presently:

To fit your subjective experience to reality.

You wrote: “He promised me so many times he wouldn’t break my heart, that he would always be there for me, that I was the one for him…”

The promises a person makes are only as good as the person making them. His words were worthless. You are holding on to his words as if they have a meaning in objective reality. Objectively, the only meaning of these words is the past enunciation of them. You are holding on to enunciation, the utterance, the sound, the vocalization of syllables and consonants and nothing more.

You wrote: “I am terrified of this happening with anyone else”- treat anyone else’s promises as utterance, sounds and future promises by a future man will not be threatening. After a long time of getting to know a man, evaluate him and then figure if his promises are more worthy than mere utterances, the making of sound.

You wrote: “One day, I broke down and sent him the pictures of the texts he sent me, promising never to hurt me, and he said cruelly to get over it, that it had been 2 months already”- it really takes 2 minutes to get over the making of sounds if you perceive those sounds as just sounds, which is the objective reality here.

You wrote: “He said we shouldn’t be friends anymore”- good idea.

You wrote: “Anyone I meet, I cannot imagine them being as wonderful as he was at the beginning”- what if instead of imagining others to not be as wonderful as he was in the beginning, what if you imagined them not being as unloving as he has been at the end.

You wrote: “I see now that it was not real love on his end, but it was real for me…”- objectively, love between two people cannot be real unless it is real for both people and the relationship is indeed working for the two.

You wrote: “I have never felt that way about anyone before, so grateful to finally have that emptiness inside of me filled, that I was certain he was the one for me…”- objectively, he is not the one for you.

“I’ve regressed back to wondering what would have happened if I had behaved myself better that last visit to his city when we were together, what if I had paid more attention to my appearance? …I should have presented myself better”- do you think this is true for all the other women who have been in his life, none of which he committed to, that they didn’t present themselves attractively enough (including the blue eyed girls, which is his type, as he stated to you)?

anita

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