Handhold needed for mad unrequited love-related reason

[BarefootTeeth]

… A man I love but can’t have is out on a date with another woman. Hold my hand so I don’t keep checking WhatsApp to see how long it’s been since he’s been on, and speculating about whether he’s enjoying himself.

I get this this is dim-witted, stalkerish, self-destructive behaviour, I do.

Distract me, and/or tell me how you’ve managed to quash unrequited love?

God he sounds like he'd be a nightmare! Still entangled with the ex, flaky, moody...
C'mon OP! There are far nicer men than this out there, no matter how much you'd like to jump his tasty bones!

I had a bit of an infatuation like this over a friend I'd known for many, many years. We were both in unhappy relationships. His partner sadly died, and a year or so later I eventually found the strength to leave my husband. Some months later we started occasionally seeing each other. To begin with it was a LDR because circumstances meant he had to move away from the area for 6 months and my feelings were so, so intense (absence...heart fonder and all that). However, after he moved back and we saw each other more regularly, I started to notice his flaws which I'd blocked out previously. In the space of about 2 months my feelings completely died. He's still dead keen on a relationship but he gives me the complete ick now.

OP, if your feelings don't abate, then I think you also have to give some thought to how you will feel if one of his dates goes well and he starts a relationship with someone new. That will be a killer if you're still infatuated with him.

I'm sure I'm not the only poster on this thread who is wishing this man would come to his senses and realise what he needs has been right under his nose all the time

I guess the heart wants what the heart wants…

I guess. I also guess my heart is a masochistic idiot.

He’s working away for a couple of days, and a bit of me is slightly relieved.

(Also getting a haircut, though. See above about heart being a masochistic idiot.)

@WhenDovesFly, you’re right. Though the only time he’s mentioned the date (apparently it was only one, and the night I started this thread because I thought he was on a date, he was at a work awards thing solo), he shuddered and said ‘Never again. Once was enough.’ I’ll hope this thing passes before he dates again.

Mine lasted 2 years although a bit different in that we did have sex a few times in that 2 years. I joined the limerence board on reddit and found it so helpful.

So it was a sexual relationship of sorts? That feels quite different to me. The person you had feelings for at least found you sexually attractive…? (Not to minimise your pain, obviously, but I suppose that seems to me a kind of acknowledgement…!)

I just looked at the Reddit limerence board, but didn’t see anything that reflected my own experience. They seemed to be mostly either people who didn’t really know the people they’d fallen for and just stalked them on SM and hot very excited when they posted, or exes grieving a relationship that had been ended by the other party.

Not that I can talk. He’s coming home late tonight. I am an idiot.

But I think where I feel I have stuff in common with reddit folk is that all consuming thinking about them all the time feeling. Which seems similar to you.

I’m working on reducing that! Not replying promptly to messages, sometimes not replying, trying to centre myself, stay sane, remind myself he’s ordinary and flawed. But then I look at him — he came by this evening on his way home from the GP with an antibiotic, looking pale and shivery and at his least attractive — and I melt. And kick myself.

I feel you! Mine has changed his WhatsApp picture and I have been a little fixated with it!