Why does infatuation hurt

Is my case of constant infatuations towards most girls normal? Or am i the odd one out for being way too much? I have been controlling my urges quite well since our relationship started but i'm scared i will hurt her unintentionally due to my infatuations and sudden urges taking over. I had another infatuation towards a girl i don't even know on Instragram tonight, that's how i stumbled across your article.

I have never done anything about my infatuations, save talking to them for the fear of hurting anyone, especially my girl, but i don't know how long i can control it. Work and games keeps girls off my mind for most of the time, but i don't know how long it'll last Is there any advice?

S: Sorry i wrote such a long comment. Just had to take some things off my chest. Hope you don't mind Lucy. I have been infatuated with a girl who is mysterious and doesn't talk much in class but only in PE we were playing together and i tried to look her in the eye and talk to her but i couldn't and she wanted sitting directly opposite me i couldn't muster the courage as you said turn it into reality I am going to try talk to her but how.

Also she like my posts on instagram and followed me. I have been seeing she is realizing this. But i don't know how to go about on this. I think i want to be friends with her but its never going to happen. I was infatuated with another girl before she was really pretty now it with this dark and mysterious girl who does talk but only sometimes.

I'm a girl and I'm wondering if i suppose to be getting infatuated with girls. Wht if I'm I am currently offering personalized reports!

This article was nothing short of stunningly accurate and direct. Do you ever do clinical sessions Lucy? I am in a bit of a pickle, and I came across this page and thought posting on here may be helpful.

I have been dancing ballroom for 3 years and have never been able to find a partner so have only ever done exams. But two weeks ago my teacher found me a partner to compete with, and we have started practicing and dance really well together.

The issue is I am completely infatuated with him. At first I just found him very physically attractive, and thought it was okay to think he was attractive. But after a couple of practices I have found myself completely obsessed with him. I know he is not someone who would share all of my values and things, just completely not my type of person in regards to relationships.

I do think part of it may be me seeing qualities in him that I wish I had myself, such as his confidence, and so greatly admiring the things in him that I wish I had myself. So possibly working on my own confidence would help ease the feelings. It might not be that bad. She came up to me a week ago for some technical assistance which I gave. It took me a while to settle down but I hope I managed it quite well and she seemed glad I helped.

Things are much easier now. I don't need to be awkwardly silent nor over exuberant when she is around. The infatuation just needs to be out totally - it isn't yet. I'm deeply infatuated to this guy I don't even know the name of. I always see him in the library and he has come up to tap on my shoulder to ask me to take care of his stuff a few times. However, as i started to show my interest by sitting next to him or looking at him, he does not seem to reciprocate..

We've bumped into each other a few times in very dramatic settings something like what you'd expect in movies and I think this is why i am so infatuated by him, thinking that we are meant to be, etc.

I don't even know this guy; his name, age, anything. But I can't help thinking about him, looking forward to seeing him and just picturing us together. I feel crazy and wrong. I know am gradually getting over it and this infatuation is not debilitating for me. It doesn't stop me from going about my job or my personal responsibilities with the concentration that they require. I've noticed that thoughts wander to her only when I am not doing anything important. Maybe this is my biggest hurdle.

When I was at my worst and dealing with similar situations to yours, I would try and think about how my LO reminded me of one of my friends who is lovely and kind-hearted, but has a slightly 'goofy' smile.

Focusing on that trivial, albeit genuine, resemblance helped me to snap out of the trance of idolization and rumination. I started to see them in a less romantic, 'you're so mystical and radiant' light, and to start to see them in an affectionate way because they reminded me a little of a friend that I was CERTAINLY not limerent over.

The aim isn't to develop a complete aversion to your LO if that is not realistic; she might well be a sparkly and truly kind person.

Rather, you need to realize that her positive traits aren't anything particularly special. They're within the same domain of interesting traits that you might see in some of your favorite friends, or your family members AKA: people that you could never become obsessed with!

To slowly but surely leave the highs and lows of a pathological limerence, you ONLY need to tug your fixated brain away from seeing her as 'god-like'. She may be beautiful, smart and lovely, but this doesn't mean that you need be lovesick over her and mourning the fact that you can't be with her. Again, I'm sure there are many women that you could describe using colorful and complimentary language, but who you aren't strongly romantically interested in. It's all about reducing her back to 'human status'.

I held the door open for her inadvertently obviously I wasn't going to barge in first and she gave me such a wonderful smile seems like all the hard-work of the last two weeks has collapsed like a pack of cards! So I met this guy on a cruise a couple days ago. I went with my friend and we made a bunch of new friends including this guy that we'll call Max.

Anyways me and "Max" were getting along eeally well and became friends but then it turned into something more, for me atleast. I started to like him and I thought maybe he liked me too because I would see him staring at me all the time and we did a lot of thing that couples would do. The thing is that the cruise ended and because the days got more chaotic, we never ended up switching any info. All the people who we were friends with never got his info either and he lives a couple hours away.

Its only been a couple days and I feel like I'm never gonna get over him. I know it sounds stupid and that it will eventually pass but it feels like right now its taking up all my energy and making me feel really depressed. I want to tell someone how I feel but I feel like they arent going to take this seriously because I am so young and "don't know what it's like to feel real pain and suffering. Please help me figure out ways to speed up the healing.

I'm holding it together but when I talk to other people I can feel tears building up even when we aren't talkinf about anything close to him or the trip. This is taking over my life and I don't know what to do.

However, this quote doesn't take into consideration the fact you actively create your own reality and are capable of manifesting your wildest dreams. I sincerely hope that you choose to give life a chance!

Depression is a temporary state; it is a metabolic shut-down and is the biologically-advantageous antidote to rumination. Yes, that's right. It isn't something that you'll always suffer from, nor is it a 'genetic imbalance'. However, to beat depression, you must 'keep it moving'.

Albeit incredibly hard, you must commit to moving past this, write a list of small things to accomplish and start ticking them off. No one should blame you for walking out early. The best way to counter this illogicality and find peace is to realize that this person has seen your soul, and has still decided that they don't want to be with you.

I knew about his existence, just didn't think he would notice me.. Telling him I was glad to see him happy having fun.. Lucy, I can't stress how important and eye-opening your replies have been.

Thank you so very much. Maybe I will keep you posted if you aren't bored. Even if slightly oppressed by societal expectations of how women should act regarding sexuality, she'd meet your eyes with a glimmer.

If you're relatively perceptive and find that you can typically judge friends' facial expressions etc. Mutual attraction is very obvious and hard to hide, in terms of the energy a person gives out and directs towards you. Yes, it's positive that you've come to that conclusion and can start to move forward.

I speak to many people who are in the depths of unreasonably strong limerence and delusional as a consequence; you seem to be moderately infatuated, but still logical. Could it also be a cultural thing? Women in India in workplaces will be extremely guarded. They know there are far too many creeps. I don't want to come across as one of those. I'd prefer leaving the job if that was the case or if I anticipate that to happen. So even if there is interest I am not sure if would be shown - certainly not to a new colleague.

They would need to know a person very very well to become interested. And in this particular case I can bet my quite modest bank balance that there would be no interest at all even if she came to know me well. This sounds like it is more of an infatuation than a truly problematic obsession 'limerence' - you haven't mentioned gut-wrenching lows and depression from this experience, which is positive. A passionate infatuation fizzles out quickly, as long as you cut the cord and stop picturing future scenarios involving her.

You seem self-aware and mention that she seems uninterested, which is very likely the case as mutual interest would be obvious even in a reserved woman! You need to focus on yourself, see your feelings as a pesky beast to tame and try and make as many new connections as possible.

I recently joined a new IT company. None of my colleagues work in the office I do. I go there because its an easier commute. Now there is a colleague there. She said Hi to me the first day and told me no one works here beyond 9PM. I am alone on that floor till 11PM when my shift ends. Earlier I did not think of her much but now I am infatuated with her. It doesn't help that she is quite bubbly. I know this won't work out for two reasons - I am at least 15 years older to her and I think she is already engaged.

I also know that she is indifferent towards me and we have spoken probably 4 times in the last 4 months. But I don't want to force a conversation with her because I neither want to make her uncomfortable nor feel threatened. I did not add her as a contact in my official list; I did not connect with her on LinkedIn for the same reasons. Is this infatuation or more scarily an obsession? I desperately want to get over it for my own sanity. It always helps if the person that you are infatuated gives you a clear, negative response.

However, if there seems to be uncertainty, your brain will perceive this as hope and you may become even more strongly infatuated.

Therefore, whether or not you should disclose your feelings depends on their personality. Does it ever help to tell the object of your infatuation how you are feeling and that you are trying to get over them? I am tempted to do this, to help with closure, but it may really be an attempt to spark something. And it might not be fair or kind to lay that on him. My marriage was broken long married life. I am a single mother with a teenage kid.

While i was coping with all this, one of the guys who is 10 years younger had a crush on me. Initially, I denied but eventually I got attracted. I have met him only twice and he has moved out of country as well. It has been more than a year since I have seen him. I am not even ready to get into relationships again.

Did I force my attraction to him just to forget my past? Why am I not able to get him out of my mind? I feel pathetic when I trouble him to keep in touch. Is it not possible to be connected as a friend? I met this guy at school and I'm scared at how I might even love him, it has been about 10 months from the time we clicked.

Thank you for responding to me and for putting a positive spin on my silly obsession, I feel quite ashamed of the irrational feelings and thoughts I have for him. Thank you for sharing your story. This is fascinating and goes to show that infatuation and limerence are illusory states. They are reflections of our own aberrant neurochemical circuitry and psychological wounds and have little to do with who we project them onto, whether it be a real person or a fictional one.

You need to treat this as a drug addiction and stop following his social media. Going cold-turkey on this will make it impossible for you NOT to overcome this over time. You are clearly obsessionality prone, but this isn't a bad thing. There's a duality to everything mental-heath related. It means you're more passionate, more driven, and can focus on abstract ideas more clearly than the average "neurotypical" person. Use this to your advantage - throw yourself into a new project, learn a language or set yourself a fitness goal.

The world is your playground, and you can thrive amazingly well in it with a brain like yours. I plan on writing articles on the benefits of certain psychiatric traits in the future. Being prone to limerence, intrusive thoughts and obsessive thinking has actually taken me very far in life, because I've learnt how to manage my mental health while taking advantage of being better than the average person at certain things.

I know this is completely ridiculous but it is affecting my life and marriage. I am infatuated by a fictional character in a tv series, and by extension the actor that plays him.

This silliness is affecting my personal life and my relationship with my husband as I am comparing him with this ideal man and finding it hard to be aroused and intimate with my husband. I feel my life is being wasted and I am in the wrong place, I think I should leave my husband and children and go find this man that will make me forever happy. Please help me. It's so hard when your feelings are reciprocated, but the person doesn't quite like or need you as much as you do them.

All you can do is keep on living your life, despite the pain and obsession, and trust in your connection with him. If you guys really do have a connection beyond sex, he'll stay in your life in some form. That will have to be enough. I am in a gay relationship, and i met this other guy who is married to a woman and has 2 kids.

He is a beautiful guy, we met for the last year to have sex. Not i wish to meet him every day, he does not want a relationship, but sometimes he messages me. Im going crazy. Cant find anything negative about him. Its like he's perfect. I really need help to overcome him. At least i was capable to delete all of his chats not to keep on going back to them. I think of him easily 50 times a day. Im sure he will message me back but dont know when and this kills me. Hi I have been in infatuation for two years with this man.

I know it is wrong but I get restless and feel like crying if don't see this man for 1day. He is also nervous and shy in front of me.

We don't talk to each other. Can you please tell me the solution for this.? Mags Unfortunately, starting a platonic relationship with someone that you are infatuated with is impossible.

You can remain civil, if that's what you mean by a "friendship", but I don't think that is what you truly want. You, like everyone else who is currently infatuated with someone, want to be part of his life in any way that you possibly can. If you choose to be his friend, unless you're both diligent with boundaries next to impossible , you'll just end up getting to know each other in detail as if you were in the early stages of a relationship.

You are correct in thinking that this behaviour is wrong and unfair to his wife, but it doesn't make either of you entirely bad people. We are animals driven by our brains that possess some very primitive, reptilian components. It is unfortunately common for married people like him to find a spark in someone new and become temporarily infatuated. After all, a long-term relationship is loving but no longer "exciting" like new romance. The truth is that it is very rarely worth ruining a healthy marriage in this way, and that infatuations are ephemeral by nature.

Having said that, how you deal with this situation is down to you two. If you truly think that you have a deep emotional connection and that he is on the same page as you, talk to him.. It might be that he is unhappy in his marriage for other reasons than it just being a bit dull - maybe he is already looking to leave his wife.

However, I think that you are right in thinking that you should nip this in the bud and stop getting to know him. I wanted to dance around the above point not to give you false hope and steer you towards a bad decision, but to highlight that life isn't black and white. You're not completely irrational to want to take this further, despite infatuation being short-lived and illusory. Who knows, maybe there IS a real connection there that would outlive the initial buzz of falling in love.

You will mourn him and feel like you're missing out on a life chapter so spiritually-aligned with your destiny, but you need to let yourself experience those thoughts knowing that they are ILLUSORY. Our brain has evolved in this way to confer us with a biological advantage: guaranteed survival of the human species. It spins up a little story for us with the help of potent neurotransmitters, tricking us into thinking that we need to grab onto this new, exciting person like our life depends on it..

Good luck. I truly feel for you - it's agonising to let go of an "almost relationship", but this too shall pass. I have worked next to a man for months that I connected with immediately.

He is smart, funny, fun, interesting, he is a leader in the community and owns a business as well as leads worship at the church. He has introduced me to his wife and I have visited them at church even. One day as we were working something shifted. The conversation became more flirtatious I invited him to come along with some other co-workers to grab a beer after we were done and he said yes but then said he forgot about something and had to jet but would love to grab a beer later in the week.

We ended up meeting that following Wed at a restaurant, we had 2 drinks and some food and he paid. It seemed innocent enough A week later we met again at another place for round 2. He mentioned wanting to sit next to me in a booth and I played it off and laughed and said that would be awkward. We got a margarita one of the big ones and drank out of the same glass with 2 straws Something really sparked that night.

We laughed, talked, enjoyed some drinks, then he grabbed my hand After walking out to the car we gave each other a small kind of half way peck on the cheek but a little on the lips That Friday, I was on the way to a movie alone which I typically do and I couldn't stop thinking of him. I asked him to come. He did. We sat so close to each other, held hands and cuddled, never kissed, but came so close a few times.

I know this is wrong. I know this is bad and hurts his wife. But i can't stop. I think about him every day, all day, and he says the same thing about me. He has everything I want in a partner but 2 things I'm divorced and have 4 children which is why I really don't want to date anyone. It's hard at 37 to find connections. I was certain that after my divorce I would never love again.

I didn't want to. This sneaked up on us. I don't think he will leave his wife and I wouldn't want him to, not for me. I have a feeling something is missing in his marriage but I can't be the filler for that. I am getting more infatuated every day and the thought that this could be over any day makes me want it more.

I wish I knew how to get through this. It seems clear that I should just cut it off but I can't bring myself to do it. How do I break it off but still remain friends? Is that possible? He certainly could be, or you might be viewing him through the rosy-tinted lenses of infatuation and warping reality. It is also possible that he finds you attractive but is not truly "infatuated" - so, he flirts back, but doesn't feel any emotional pull towards you.

When I see him, in my building at work, he looks deep into my eye and smiles for a lot longer than normal, sometimes he even says Hi how are you.

Every time this happens I get a racing heart, and almost like panic attack symptoms?? I think about him all the time for days at a time, imagining things I find this painful and too difficult to talk to him, he hold a very high level position not in my department where I work but we are both married :.

Do you think he could also be infatuated with me? We really haven't had a conversation except for one time a brief chat when we first met I can't stop thinking about him. I think about him when I wake up, when I go to bed and every other waking second. It's starting to affect my daily life. I also work with him although I don't have a regular interaction with him. The funny thing is I don't even know him enough but I like him more than I should.

This is so real. I was infatuated borderline obsessed, sadly with someone a few years ago. It took me nearly a year to get over them when we only dated a couple months. I wish I would've read your article back then - could've saved me a lot of heartache! Bookmarking for next time :-D. Intense relationships like these are usually characterized by grandiose gestures think: The Notebook , intense physical attraction and undeniable passion.

In reality, to experience this level of intensity is to feel completely consumed by it. The desire to give all of your attention to another person is so overwhelming, you may find it difficult to concentrate on anything else. It can be confusing to understand the difference between infatuation and love, as many relationships begin with a generous sprinkling of infatuation.

In healthy relationships, however, the fiery initial phase of infatuation is fleeting, soon giving way to a true partnership based on genuine trust and respect instead of an obsessive attachment to the other person. When infatuation is fueled by insecurity, the relationship either ends as quickly as it starts, or drags on as the infatuation morphs into a harmful addiction to the other person.

If you feel yourself or a romantic partner becoming too intense , obsessive or controlling, take a step back and check-in with your gut. This might seem obvious but, the lens of infatuation has a funny way of shaping signs and signals from your S. While learning how to communicate your feelings is tricky, unhealthy infatuation can spiral mixed signals out of control.

You might blow off friends, family, and school responsibilities, feeling that time with the object of your infatuation is more valuable.

You might even find yourself putting your life on hold to remain available for your S. When you love somebody you are inspired by the way they live their life.

Love respects boundaries and makes space for people to have fulfilling lives of their own. If a text goes unanswered for too long, do you start to imagine the worst? It may take a few dates to realize that you are in love. You love them on a good day and you like them on a bad day. When you first look at your love interest, you already believe they are perfect without knowing them. You think that because they look attractive, it means their personality will be the same way.

In our minds, they must always look beautiful, be strong, agreeable, courageous, and exhibit no blemishes. In reality, people have a lot of sides and you cannot choose which ones you would prefer to make an appearance. If we see any imperfections in our partner, it will destroy the illusion we placed on our partners that made us happy.

The reality of a true partner is seeing all of their imperfections and loving them anyway. Love is all about being comfortable in revealing your true self. We feel comfortable in exposing memories that may be embarrassing or hard to talk about. We also reveal our true selves in the way we look. Our partner has seen how we look without makeup or with our bed hair when we wake up. It is the same as we get older as we are not going to look the same as when we met our significant other.

We will either lose our hair or it will go grey, we will gain weight, get wrinkles, loose joints, etc. If someone really loved you, they would not care how you look because they love you too much. You will always be beautiful to that person. We want the illusion that we created to stick. This can mean only telling our partners the good thing about our day or going to extremes to look perfect all the time like wearing too much makeup to hide blemishes or even plastic surgery.

We are giving our partners a superficial self in fear that they will leave us and our illusion will be shattered. The love you two have for each other will mean more than any flaws you exhibit. Love means that your partner knows that you are not perfect and can accept that. Love means that what you feel for each other will never go away no matter where you are.

Your partner may have to go on a business trip that can take months, but breaking up is not an option for you guys. Love does not have an expiration date in that you both want forever with each other.