Getting obsessed way too early

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Guys(or women),

I have a horrible tendency to get obsessed with women.

When I was younger it was worse, now it's down to the level of just being really bad. I mean, I don't get obsessed with all women but when I meet one that is really desireable to me and they so much as display a single moment of kindness towards me, the thought of her will continuously invade my consciousness until an inevitable conclusion is reached. The whole, plenty of fish in the sea argument never seems to work, I can't even look at other women once my "target is locked" so to speak. Once I find a girl who I like enough, she's the only girl, at least until she rejects me at which point I feel sh***y for a few days and move on.

Recent example, I met a girl on a dating site. I meet lots of girls on dating sites that are nothing special but this one, well, let's just say she was perfect for me, at least I thought, tall, slender, beautiful, and interested in the same stuff. We had exchanged maybe 3 messages over the course of a few days but already I don't think I could have had stronger feelings if I was in love. I was planning out a future, I was thinking about what kinds of stuff we'd do, how I'd find someone who finally got me, how this whole stupid game would finally be over and I'd finally be able to cash in and live a happy life with someone who gets me. I was obsessed, I knew it, but there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I can control my actions but not my emotions. This girl had to be THE ONE.

Ok, I don't want the 20/20 hindsight post-relationship analysis because, trust me, my hindsight is always 20/20, it's the foresight I'm lacking.

She sent me one kind of long message at 4am(maybe she was catfishing me and she really lives in California, who knows?) to which I responded with a very long message about one of my obsessions, China, kind of coming out of my shell a little. No response, that's it. My dreams all kind of just pop like a soap bubble as soon as I seek to reach out and grasp them, it seems. I feel like my obsession clouded my judgement as to what was socially acceptable. I have this tendency to believe that people ought to feel exactly as I feel about anything. If I feel obsessed that must mean she feels the same way, I have a hard time dealing with emotional incongruence, in that sense.

Anyway, as soon as you think someone out there finally gets you and can understand you and really has thought about the same things you're thinking to that excruciating level of detail, that they actually, give a s**t, and on-top of that are beautiful and perfect, well, you're wrong. You're alone, it's like God is trying to reinforce that in me or something.

How do I deal with this issue? I'm tired of dating women that I am not that into, it hurts too much to break things off. I want a girl I can marry but any girl who I talk to at that level will think I'm too aggressive and clingy once I get obsessed with her. On the other hand, if I just try to focus on other things I totally forget about people, I can't think of a good response, and eventually the relationship just trails off. I feel I can't be "just interested enough".

Any advice from someone who's been there, maybe who is married and happy? I feel like my obsession and need for acceptance is what sabotages me from achieving the objective.

I'm going through the exact same thing as you OP, you're definitely not alone here. Right now I'm hopelessly obsessed with a girl from my former uni (dropped out due to depression and failing grades), she's my dad's barber's stepdaughter who I met in our school's inclusion group for autistic students, we both have autism and pectus excavatum and share plenty of common interests (she even has the same name as my sister), but unfortunately she's taken now and I have made very little effort this whole time to actually talk to her because whenever I run into her I become paranoid and freeze up to where it's almost impossible for me to even speak and my stimming becomes more intense. Yesterday I decided to send her a message on Facebook talking about my social situation and asking if she felt the same way due to having Asperger's and if she wanted to talk or hang out. Her response was this:

"I'm sorry to hear about that Friendships can definitely be a challenge. Unfortunately I'm on the go all the time with classes and work, but I'm sure there are some people you can talk to though if anything. Best of luck with everything and hope it gets better yo ;;! Hope you're having a good day"

I don't know whether she was being 100% sincere or if she was just looking for a polite way to blow me off, and I'm not sure if she thinks about me positively or negatively. Though on the other hand, she does seem to be extremely busy all the time and talks a lot about stress from work and school, plus during our interactions she seems very receptive and sweet and sometimes is the one to initiate contact (she's come up to me a few times after seeing me from a distance and even hugged me once at the end of a conversation) I just hope I don't end up creeping her out or come off as annoying or stalkerish, depending on her ability to pick up on social cues.

As much as I want to simply get over her and expand my palate, there are very few women who I find attractive or share as much in in common with as I do her (tbh I didn't even think she was necessarily attractive when I first met her, I just gradually developed feelings for her over time)

Sounds kind of like the way I was with this one girl named Ellie, still wish I could find another Ellie. She was the only person who seemed like my kind of weird, her mind was this one big fascinating mystery to me.

She didn't really have a lot of real friendships, except for this one asian girl, and she preferred to spend most of her time sitting at home drawing and reading. So hard to find people like that, they just don't go out of the house, don't make themselves accessible, but they are so fascinating to me and I think I could really experience the deepest form of love with someone like that. She really didn't seem to have much desire for social interraction. I don't know if that's aspergers because she seemed perfectly happy being herself. Unlike me. I want to have people like me, I just don't find myself willing to make the social compromises to make it happen because I'm more interested in the actual activity than the people I'm doing it with. That's how being an aspie kind of plays out in my life.

I would talk to her for hours on the phone, or maybe talk at her, lol but she'd just kind of stay on there and listen. I think her Mom kind of wanted her to be more social so she'd get her to talk to me. I was pretty outgoing but, I can kind of turn off my awareness of social cues or I sometimes just don't perceive them. I know I've dropped a nuclear bomb a couple of times and just kept talking as if I were conversing about the weather. I'll only find out about it the next day when I'm getting hatemail from the person.

I don't know, it was a strange relationship, or lack thereof. She was probably too polite to outright reject me, and I was too oblivious to social cues to get that she maybe wasn't feeling it, except that sometimes she was. Because once or twice she did hang out with me, never was quite sure why though, maybe just curious what it was actually like to go on a "date". I don't know, I was so bad at putting myself in other people's shoes back then.

All I can say is I understand exactly where you are coming from. I am utterly obsessed with a woman I know doesn't see me as anything more than a casual friend. I was shocked when she broke it off but I realize I just missed the obvious signs from the start she either wasn't ready or just wasn't into me(n). I am probably ruining chances with emotionally available women who are ready for an intimate relationship but I cannot seem to get her off my mind and accept I can't sit around hoping she will "see the light". If I figure out the solution I will be sure to let you know but I would suggest relaxing and realizing everything happens for a reason in its own time.

I guess my only realization is that I wind up falling in love with an idea and not an actual human being. And the human being can never hope to attain the perfection that my idea has. It can be hard not to develop expectations and then be disappointed when they don't come to fruition.

My only reassurance in this is that the fantasy will inevitably be better than the reality. Or the fantasy will only last so long before the reality kicks in, and a that point, well, that's when s**t gets real for real.

hormones

I can relate to this a bit.. obsessive crushes on new potential partner interests that seem like they might be my ideal mate.

But I recognize that I've had several of these sorts of crushes and know full well that if I don't meet the person or we don't end up dating that I'll get over it and there'll be another someday - there always is.. and one day it will actually be the right one & we'll both feel it. I have to believe that. It makes it easier to get over these crushes and carry on.

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