The sense in forgetting?

[redblues]

I'm not sure the post title really is the question...I hope by the end of the post I figure out what the question is at least. A bit over an year ago I met a man with whom I had a very short relationship. The key points here are: I was very much attracted to him. (Attracted probably means in love- i.e. a feeling of tenderness, smiling at the thought of the other person). He initiated the relationship and I rather became attracted as it was advancing. He also finished the relationship after a couple of weeks. I believe I told him how I felt & he said he can't respond to my feelings and that was the end of it. (He claimed he wasn't ready for a relationship...I tend to think there was more, maybe that there was something he disliked about me, but I don't believe I'll ever know the truth).

And yes the answer is indeed pretty obvious and I got that advice before...however, I don't see where this advice is going. A new relationship? That actually doesn't feel like a prospect now- I can't see myself in a relationship. Peace of mind? Somehow that concept lost meaning.

 

The sketchy answer inside of me is that I could only 'leave him' for myself- i.e. for getting closer to myself and becoming a different person- and not for anyone else. But I'm not getting any closer to that. He's with me every day. I go on the bus and I imagine I hold his hand in mine. I take a rest and I imagine I lay my head on his chest. I have coffee on the balcony with him standing next to me and we're watching the square together.

 

In real life, we cut contact 7-8 months ago, with me not replying to a last message and unfriending on fb, realizing that it made no sense to keep on talking...it was that sort of remote link where people ask each other how they're holding up/ if they're alright once every 3 months; the expected answers to those questions have never been too clear to me. I can't see how we'd get back into contact now, and what for. A relationship is out of the question for me- the pain of the rejection cannot be undone, even less so in a context where he doesn't love me.

 

Nonetheless I want him close. I suppose I'm addicted to the feelings. I prefer the emotional content. In any case, this is tearing me apart- I can see the non-reality of it.

 

Advice? It almost looks like I have no options. Like I just have to live with this and hope one day I wake up and it's gone, but I'm still here.

[lop98]

I relate so much to your story. I felt the same for a guy, except in this case it was me that didn't want to commit or take that big step and build a real relationship. The "love" lasted a few weeks before it backfired, we both ended up heart broken and he moved on to someone else as soon as one of his friends came to the rescue and introduced her to him (days). Eventually I did the same.

 

I haven't spoken to him in the same amount of time as you and don't see any reason to change that either. What used to torment me was what you described and that I learned to overcome: the idealization, daydreaming of scenarios where he was with me, where obstacles would be removed and we would be together again. As I became resentful of how he moved on, the scenarios switched from reconciliation to fantasies where I make him suffer in return.

 

Despite feeling like this inside, always with him in my mind, I continued to work on how to heal (being out with friends, working out, concentrating on my job and studies), I met a guy and started falling for him. As months passed by the "fictional" images of that guy and me together faded... as if the pink glasses came off. I don't fantasize about him anymore, it's all been replaced by my boyfriend and plans we have instead of lonely dreams of mine.

 

I don't think it's weird at all that you feel this way, I've been out of years-long relationships and I was happy and over it a month later... but relationships like this, intense and so brief you can't even call it honeymoon phase, you're basically cut off while you're still feeling butterflies about a question mark... they can be devastating, I know that for me it's been the hardest breakup, so I can't really blame you for hanging on to it for so long, the only thing you can do is to detach yourself manually by meeting other guys and realizing how this one simple guy has nothing the others lack, he's a regular man with regular qualities that made you wonder one day and then he vanished, leaving a trail of mystery that favors him but that in reality, may or may not have been all that interesting once figured out.

 

I know that all guys may seem uninteresting but they're not!, and in a way what you do have to fight in all sense of the word, is the obsessive thoughts of him, embellishing one memory more and more as time goes by... which can be very draining and very damaging in the long run.

Edited December 19, 2013 by lop98

[redblues]

Thanks for the reply and for sharing your story. Yes, indeed, men around me do seem uninteresting. I did date after the break up and was at one point close to forgetting, but that subsequent relationship proved to be just as inconsistent. I suppose I am afraid of going through rejection again and am trying to avoid the pain. And it is as though this relationship made everything dark for me...I actually used to have a normal love life before it, not always great, but yes, back then I did mean something for my partners and they did for me, even if it didn't always work out.

[legion113]

Well, you really need to look into why you're so fixated on him. Was it because he rejected you with no reason? Because that happens a lot.

 

It's not going to "go away" without some help. That's why people suggest dating agaon. There are plenty of guys out there, and you've inflated this guy to mythical proportions, and you've only known him a few weeks.

 

I mean, i had a guy disappear just over a month ago, and truth be told, i actually forget what he looks like...

 

 

 

Man, I LOVE that last line...