Does anyone else almost live a different life in their head?

[Wheelerdeeler]

I hope this doesn't make me sound unhinged but I do this sometimes. For context, I am a mid 40s married mother.

However, I spend part of my day living a completely different life. In my head.

At the moment, the fake life centers around a silly crush I have on a work colleague - 20 years my junior.

I imagine us getting together but I am 20 years younger, how it would happen, the way it would happen right through to us having twins!

I am happy in my own real life. Why do I do this? I know there is the crush element, it isn't serious and I would never do anything about it but I do laugh at myself. How ridiculous am I being like this? The poor guy is blissfully unaware that as he sits opposite me at a meeting I am planning our next date/holiday/child.

If it wasn't about him, I would still have this alternative life sometimes in my head. Different characters but there nearly always is something.

As I type I can see how mad this all is but am I alone? Do others do this?

What a great thread! I've always felt unhinged for doing this but now I know it's super common!

Me too. I currently have a plumber doing my bathroom. He's probably about 23. I'm 52! I'm having some very inappropriate thoughts about him especially when I see him drilling through walls!! Last night I was thinking what it would be like if we were a couple! He finishes today anyway so it's very short lived! However ... tomorrow the tiler arrives so who knows what I'll be thinking or who I'll be planning my life around tomorrow. Quite exciting really .....

they probably do, and if they admitted it like the OP did, it would not be seen as whimsical fun.

Wait. You mean I’m not secretly married to Johnny Depp? And I didn’t perform as Eponine alongside Michael Ball as Marius on the West End’s revival of the 1985 Les Mis cast?

As long as both parties keep their fantasies entirely in their heads and don't perve on the blameless younger bystander who has been cast in the fantasy daydream, I don't see the harm, personally. The women on this thread have been very clear that they are well aware that it's in the realm of fantasy, and that the whole point is that these men would in no way find them attractive in RL, far less rip their clothes off while tiling, or whatever.

ETA There's an attractive woman in nearly every one of Walter Mitty's macho fantasies of being a surgeon saving an important patient, flying a hydroplane, being a cool killer who shoots someone left-handed from an incredible distance etc etc

"my husband has just admitted he fantasises about having it away with our 21 year old dog walker, he says its fine though as he just keeps fantasy in his head as knows she would in no way find him attractive"

LTB

But if he's told his wife about his fantasy about having a knee-trembler with the dogwalker in the bushes behind the dogpoo bin, he's not keeping it in his head. Keeping it in his head doesn't just mean not asking the dogwalker for a shag, it means never saying anything about it to anyone, never giving the remotest indication he finds the person attractive, standing about profiling his erection at dog pick up time, accidentally answering the front door in a towel etc.

@RuthandPen Ha! I am a novelist but one with a day job, whereas daydream me doesn’t have the day job – writing is work, but it was much less so when I didn’t have to cram it around a 9-5. (Couldn’t afford to post-DC.) I probably was quite well dressed and did a lot of drifting around to think; no pleasuring in the rose garden, though.

Actually, my perimenopausal daydreams feature a lot less rose garden pleasuring and a lot more “being left alone to read a book”.

When I was young fantasy me used to age alongside real me. But then I had to abandon that and now fantasy me is 25 - forever.

I fixate on a film crush. It helps pass the time.

I do, recently I’ve been living the life as me but I am on a solo holiday somewhere like Montenegro for three weeks. I read 10 books, go on lots of boat trips, swim in the sea, eat a tonne of Greek yogurt and go to a lovely little local restaurant each evening.

Oh dear I have a proper film crew in my head, depending on the day I may have Hans Zimmer or Philip Glass working on the OST. Sometimes I'm more in a Sundance Indie film festival kind of mood. Other days it's a five part BBC drama, Netflix is gutted to have missed the deal but hey, that's life.

I expect that many do.

Eh? Nobody said that.

I mentioned that men don't seem to do this because they never admit it but, going by the fact that many authors are male, they probably do. If you think of not telling anybody what goes on in your head as a gold standard, have at it. Your value, not mine.

@RuthandPen yes, the fantasy is specific but has changed over the years. I can say I've never fantasised about being a novelist. Where I'm the main character, I have fantasised about being:
a sell-out singer
an elite athlete
rescuing various people from life-threatening situations
detective
leading a rebellion in a war
totally obliterating the enemy
a spy
a murderer, and no-one knows

Yes, I have done this since being a teen & I've often thought the daydreams could be the outline of a novel! Totally delusional!
On a related note @Wheelerdeeler have you read the book "All Fours" by Miranda July? There are a few parallels with your thoughts & her novel 😆 I'm reading it now & then read your thread & had to comment 🙃

It isn't as if im making inappropriate moves on him or oogling him. No one knows i am currently using him as a character in my fantasy life.

Oooh will look it up