Hello everyone. My submission is super long for which I apologize, this is my 1st time publically talking about this and wanted to get it all out. If someone actually manages to read everything or even give me any advice/feedback I would be very grateful.

My problem is that I am unhealthily obsessed with a man I had a fling with 2 years and a few months ago.

Some background: we met because of a theatre play which he directed and I acted in. We kissed once during the rehearsals, then hooked up twice or so after the play was finished. I realized the extent of my feelings towards him, got scared, and literally escaped to a different country much to everyone’s bewilderment (including my own). I did ask him to come with me, and he said he would visit me, which obviously never happened.

I have been the one pursuing him, but he did seem at least moderately interested too, though I would say it has been perhaps just physical for him (he denied this once, saying he did care about me). He was newly broken up with a girlfriend of 3-4 years.

After a hellish year abroad (depression), I came back to city X to pick up my stuff and see a play in which he was acting, hoping to resolve the situation somehow. The trip however ended badly (will elaborate in following paragraphs).

Another year has passed. Though this time around I have actually tried to get better, my fixation has not gone anywhere. Even in otherwise happy moments, there is an undercurrent of melancholia, a sense of something missing, and various positive (theatre, art, traveling on my own) or at least non-harmful (new interest in astrology) things I have done in effort to channel the passion I would otherwise concentrate on this man seem to further tie me to him. For example I see the fact that I went vegan as the feelings he has awakened in me transforming into “universal love”.

Rationally I know these are delusions, and that my idea of this Big Thing does not at any point intersect with reality, but emotionally I am honestly quite numb unless thinking about him/dreaming about him/having visions/nightmares of him/etc. My emotional life after him seems a cheap knockoff of a real thing.

The way I see it, this inability to move on is caused by hopes that I still entertain and by the fact that he has never outright refused me. (I never admitted my feelings to him. I did write a sad letter at one point and called him 7 times in a row once, so he probably at least suspects, but never an explicit declaration.) However I am also afraid that this “need for closure” is just an excuse I have fabricated to indulge my delusions (and potentially see him again, especially since my last memory of him is so upsetting). At any rate I doubt meeting him would provide any “closure”, it is more likely that we would share a night of wild sex after which he would ghost me again.

The strange thing is that he already has a woman obsessed with him. His exgirlfriend is mentally unwell. She wrote me an angry message on Facebook when I first (drunkenly) hit on him (they were still together at the time, but she thinks the incident happened a week or two later when he has already broken up with her and merely thinks it is “not very classy” that I “offered him sexual favours“ so soon after the breakup. I asked him whether he has told her about my hitting on him, he said he indeed did and apologized). She logged into his account and wrote me a message pretending to be him. She stalked him and called often, I remember his phone ringing 20 to 30 times a day. He said changing numbers did not work because she found out his new number at work (she works for a phone operator).

Which brings me to the unfortunate trip from March 2018. At about 3am she broke into his apartment (claiming she got in easily – “maybe someone was too drunk to lock the door”, and that she came because she „knew“ and “felt” I was with him, somewhat justified as we ran into each other in a bar one or two nights before)  and made a huge mess involving screaming all sorts of things, threatening suicide, trying to jump out of the window, a panic attack that had him begging her not to die, some light property destruction (throwing books and other items). My memory of the incident is hazy (I/we were high) but I have a mental image of her holding an axe trying to destroy the wall, which I am not 100% sure happened,  alternatively it could have been a kitchen knife or even scissors. After he managed to escort her out, she returned, this time saying she has “learned to pick locks”.

Needless to say no reunion or even talk happened after this, I was too terrified and he was tired and looked like he wanted to be alone so as soon I came down a bit I backed away, wished him good luck, left and then did not really contact him for some months. I was just grateful that we had not gotten to taking our clothes off by the time she came (though it also bugged me to be honest.)

In August I made him a birthday wish to which he responded very cordially/friendly, saying he hopes to “see me again soon if at all possible and that” (I did not respond to this because of not wanting to seem desperate, go figure). Then I contacted him again in December wishing him happy holidays, again, he responded in a friendly though noncommittal way, we exchanged a couple of messages.

After this, he has mysteriously blocked me. I suspect it was the ex, especially since

1) She has unfriended me from his account once before already

2) She blocked me from seeing her own account around the same time, which I know because of checking her social media

After some days/weeks (?) he unblocked me and this Saturday I sent him a new request. He accepted, but did not respond to my carefully constructed message („why weren‘t we friends?!”). Even if he does respond, it does not mean much since at this point I am not sure who of the two am I communicating with. Additionally, he is notorious for ghosting people. And I do not have his phone number. And even if I did, he never answers calls (maybe except for his mom‘s).

Rationally I know better than to blame this ex (who has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and discontinued her therapy around the time the incident occurred) for things not working out between us. He is an independent grown man, if he wanted to contact me he would have done so. Likewise, it is possible that he is encouraging her behavior in some way, or indeed “makes her crazy” like she has suggested. (If the sexes were reversed, I would consider what I’d just said victim blaming, but still, 3 years are a long time to be this intensely, actively harassing a person if one receives no feedback at all). However it is difficult not to blame her on some sub-rational level at least, thus remaining hopeful.

I do not want to keep living this half-life, unable to move on, though maybe it would be wiser to merely try and curb my obsessive tendencies like I have done so far, (I have become quite good at not contacting/stalking him, rarely, if ever, listen to his weekly radio show, have gone 3 months without checking up on him etc) de-escalate, do damage control, and hope time will cure everything. But I am so tired. It feels hermetical, cyclical. Everything I do comes back to him in some way. The idea of never seeing him again makes my blood run cold.

Fundamentally I just want him to be well and happy, I think, so at least there’s that by way of an apology. I wish I could want the same thing for me too, or want it enough.

I am ashamed for “throwing myself at a man” as my Mom/Grandma would say, and at times cannot help but wonder whether I am indeed “a stupid slut with a bad accent” like his ex said that night she paid us a surprise visit.  (“Do you know what he says about you, MyName? He says you’re just a stupid slut with a bad accent. And that it was fucking lame when you showed up at his house and asked him to go to Paris or Rome or wherever”)

To be honest, I think this is not even my real problem. It is likely that this fixation is covering up some other issue he is a mere symbol of.

In a similar vein I think this “crush” is from large part admiration, perhaps I do not wanna be With him as much as literally Be him, possess whatever qualities he represents (freedom, sexual and otherwise – though I have had physical relationships before – adulthood, art, beauty, etc). It was also my first grown up love, first time living alone, first time in a different country etc. This I hope at least partially excuses obvious immaturity of my text (and the whole affair), I was 19 when we first met (now 21). (Cue smiles from everyone remembering their youth)

He was 27 at the time, the ex was/is in her early 30s.

Maybe someone would consider it predatory because of the age difference and what could plausibly be  interpreted as power difference (director-actress), but as I said, I was the one who hit on him, and it was actually the least predatory relationship I have ever had, as well as one with the smallest age difference. He was respectful, tender and polite with me while never outright misleading me, maybe except for when he promised to come see me “at least for a week” and then did not. (But then again I ambushed the poor guy, so it’s understandable.) And when we talked a year ago he swore he had sent me a postcard from a trip he went on shortly after I left, but I never received any postcard.

Though I wanted nothing but to be with him back then, I never reached out/asked him out, just waited for him to contact me, and when he did not, and I realized I had fallen in love, I was so scared of rejection that auto-sabotage felt like a better option, so I showed up at his place unannounced, told him I was going away and then indeed did the next day.

Now I feel if I could understand why I left maybe I would have a better shot at disentangling this mess. What was so terrifying to me? What is it that I was afraid to face 2 years ago, and how do I face it now? How do I un-stuck myself?

If you are reading this, it means you got through my extremely long-winded letter, for which I thank you. Please do not suggest therapy. I imagine it would be extremely helpful but there is no way I can afford therapy at the moment and there are no free options where I live.

Finally, it needs to be said that my behavior throughout has been terrible, which may well contribute to my uneasy feelings. In addition to everything I have already named I was living with a boyfriend at the time, and cheating on him, though I did leave relatively soon (I have not come clean though. Perhaps I could do it now, i.e. reach out to my ex and explain him why I left? Seems like uselessly/unkindly picking at scabs to me.)

One last thing, I have dated other people since, and have actually had a year long relationship with a loving, kind man who was aware of this issue and who I did actually love too (though in a different, much calmer way). I eventually ended it because it felt unsatisfactory, dirty and sad.

Update: I wrote this yesterday. She has unblocked me since then, I just saw they became facebook friends again.