How do you get over an obsessive attraction?

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I rarely become attracted to anyone. I may occasionally think a person pointed out as attractive by someone else is not repulsive, but I almost never think someone is cute, sexy, hot, or any of those other things. However, when I am attracted to someone, it is always intense and I can not pinpoint exactly why I am attracted to them.

My current dilemma: At the beginning of this semester, I caught sight of a girl in my psych class as I was scanning the room for the first time. The infatuation was instant, and I haven't been able to shake it. For most of the semester we have sat next to each other, and we occasionally exchange a few words. She is frequently on my mind and I find when I am near her or when she talks to me I feel quite incredible. I would have nauseated myself this afternoon had I been able to observe from above as I jumped at the chance to clarify the professor’s instructions to her and save her from note paperlessness. To make matters worse/better (I haven't decided if it is better or worse yet) she and I are both in the same group, writing a paper together. Over the course of the class, I have found I at least agree with all of her views on psychology and social problems she has expressed in class, and she seems to be a passionate and nice person. A week or so ago, I decided I would be entirely too angry with myself if I didn't ask her out before the end of the class. This is the first time I have liked someone enough to think them worth the effort it would take to ask them out. Now, this probably would be less of a dilemma if not for one little problem- she's taken. I found that out shortly after deciding I would, in one way or another, ask her out. I thought “Oh well" and felt fine. That is, until the next time I saw her. I fear the level of interest I have in her is bordering on obsession, and I have even less interest in other people than I did before. It bothers me because my interest in her is becoming almost exactly like any of my other fascinations. The difference is that usually I can pin down why something interests me and use that as a way to ease myself out of being obsessed. With her, I can not even look at her without my mind going numb and having thoughts I never even thought I could have run through my head. I have a hard time keeping sane even when just thinking about her. I honestly can’t find anything I don’t like about her other than the fact that I can not have her. O_o I hate that my feelings for her are so extremely shallow yet intense at the same time.
I am hoping that I will forget about her over the summer, even though part of me hopes I will have to see her again for some reason.

-End Story/Problem

My question(s): Do you become obsessed with people in this way? If so, how to you get out of being obsessed?

I'm the same way. It happens very rarely, and I berate myself for being idiotic once it's passed, but it does happen. I think the only occurrences were in eighth grade, tenth grade and this past year. Anyway, the way I usually deal with it is by avoiding the guy, because if I don't avoid him I fear I'll border on stalkerish.

Anyway, in eighth grade it was easy, I moved. In tenth grade it was really hard because I'd allowed myself to become friends with the guy and whenever he saw me he'd come over to chat. Thankfully, I was able to distract from thoughts of him by throwing myself into my other obsessions with a greater ferocity and that helped me not think about him most of the time. Though it really didn't help that my parents kept bringing him up. And this past year, I wasn't really good friends with the guy, and it was easy enough to avoid him, especially once I found out he had a girlfriend.

So, my suggestion is that while you still have class with her distract yourself with your other obsessions (or your classwork when you're in class). As soon as you don't have class anymore, avoid her. That's what's always worked for me. It's hard, and requires a lot of conscious effort, but that's always worth it if it works.

whiskey and casual sex usually does the trick for me

Time and Physical distance. Otherwise getting someone else to obsess over which I don't reccommend

when i was young and dumb [NOT calling young people dumb] i used to put pretty folk and social butterflies up on a pedestal. but as i grew older, i discovered a key thing which put everything into its proper perspective- everybody has to wipe their keister at least once per day. so i thought to myself, "self- why should I go all gaga over somebody else who also has to wipe their butt? i mean, how gross!" IOW, aside from being pretty and polished, other folk are just flesh and blood [that gets stinky if not often washed] and not perfect alabaster demigods as what i had previously thought. i hope this made sense.

I guess I'm lucky in this regard, if I find out someone is taken it's an instant turn off, I'm not sure if that's something I've developed or if it's innate to me. It would suck to be attracted to someone who's taken.

No harm asking anyway. Maybe she likes whiskey and casual sex too.

I've been in this spot for a year now. Last year I started again at Uni, became immediately infatuated with a girl in my class. She was physically attractive to me, she was friendly, very intelligent, and we shared a lot of areas of interest. Halfway that year, after we'd gone to an anime convention with a few other people from our class and had a great time there, I worked up the courage to ask her out. I got the "I like you but I don't think of you that way let's just be friends" card and she didn't talk to me much anymore after that. But I couldn't let go, I thought, maybe I should just give it some time.

Then I got hit by the hammer early this year when she started dating the one guy in our department I couldn't stand. "Jerk" type guy, the one that in those stereotypical american high school movies would be the as*hole captain of the football team. That hurt really really bad. She dumped him after about a month or so, but since then I've been in a depression that's been going for half a year now, and led me to my self-diagnosis and eventually official AS diagnosis. Studying became a problem because of it as well. A month ago she left for Japan as an exchange student, she'll be there til august. All my classmates have received messages from her except for me, which hurts as well, but now that I haven't heard or seen her for a month I think the obsession is starting to subside. Also since I heard quite a lot of stories about her that basically label her as a big tease who's flirtatious with everyone to get attention but doesn't want anything more from them. Maybe that's the wrong way to handle it but I think it would be easier for me if I'm just mad at her.

I'm trying to ignore that whole situation anyway at the moment because my studies are a more important problem. But in terms of relations with women, my self-confidence has completely gone down the drain. She was my first crush. I don't often get in situations where I meet women so someone in my class would seem like the only option to me. I keep thinking she was the one chance I had and I blew it.

Of the very very VERY few people I have felt in a similar fashion for, once I found out they were taken, or not interested, I would easily let them go, and hope I should someday find someone else similar to them who was not taken, and was interested.

If I like someone that much, I like to afford them the gift of being happy. I immediately recognize, that if they are taken, my interference in their life on a more than platonic level could only bring them destruction and unhappiness, and that is the last thing I would want for them.

So there would be no happy path for us.

If they were not interested in me, than I immediately recognize that this person is not interested in me in the way I am not interested in most people, and as we are looking for different things in life, who I would like them to be does not exist, and the path I would like with this person who does not exist, does not exist. So again, there would be no happy path for us.

So my advice is that you spend some time considering this reasoning and then keep in mind there are probably others out there in the world with similar qualities, who you are just as attracted to, and who might be able to reciprocate those feelings.

In other words, this girl is likely not your soulmate, and your soulmate is likely out there waiting for you to find her, so forget this girl and go find her.

How tragic if you never did.

Holy, I'm not the only one!
Back in my first couple years in college, I became infatuated with a girl I met going to school on the bus. At the time, I had no idea I had Asperger's - I didn't even know what it was - I was just overcome by the fact this young lady would even talk to a guy like me who was a low level geek in high school. I seriously misconstrued her friendliness for something more, even though I knew she was living with a boyfriend at the time. She was all I could ever think about, or talk about. I even visited her at work. I wasn't the only one; despite having an eating disorder, along with not being the prettiest girl in school, guys seemed to go gaga over her. Just one of those social butterflys. But when she gave me her phone number, I just couldn't bring myself to act on it - I suppose I preferred having a fantasy relationship with her, as opposed to the real, scary thing. As it turns out, she was perhaps just a little too popular with everyone. Someone had ended up harassing her by phone - at the time I had decided to call her. After that, she always had an excuse for not giving me her new number she had gotten to avoid her stalker. It was around this time that I realized her friends were laughing at me behind my back. That unhappily ended my infatuation with her, and cast me into a long period of depression.
That was only the first of my obsessions with the opposite sex. Luckily, I did learn how to deal properly with women, and got married to the great lady I'm with now. But not before years of unhappiness and suicidal thoughts. Am I perfectly adjusted, and a ladies man these days? Nope. But my wife loves me just the same.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

While I agree that time & distance support the solution, I do not think it's a 'cure,' per se. If you're prone to focusing in, and idealizing, etc, then although T & D will keep it from getting worse, and reduce it a bit over time, something more akin to a solution would come in the form of something else to focus on. For instance, if you're a guy obsessing about some hot girl at work, your only way of really escaping that obsession is likely by finding a girlfriend.

The fact of the matter is that if you're obsessing at all, in the first place, then it's likely that obsession will occur again with someone you perceive as 'better,' or equally accessible, etc. Obsession will keep happening if the conditions are right. The ability to obsess, IMO, comes from a (probably deep seated) objectification of others, using them as a symbol of something else in your mind. The only way out of it permanently is to dispel the viewing of others from a symbolic mindset. And the only way to do that is usually through gaining more experience with multiple people. That's the only way I've ever known for people to reliably reduce their propensity towards obsession.

IMO.