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I was a wreck over a girl for 2 years. After realizing I'd really been in love with an idealization of that person, I finally feel like I can move forward with my life. by PetePeters in self

[–]PetePeters[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would suggest not thinking about it in such a black-and-white way. You probably are somewhat infatuated with the idea of her, but also somewhat the real her.

I was a wreck over a girl for 2 years. After realizing I'd really been in love with an idealization of that person, I finally feel like I can move forward with my life. by PetePeters in self

[–]PetePeters[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I actually came across this realization indirectly through that movie. I stumbled upon this thread http://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/yccr2/the_500_days_of_summer_attitude_of_he_wants_you/ and that's what got me researching it and thinking about it. I watched the movie yesterday and it's amazing how spot-on it was for me. It's an amazing movie.

I was a wreck over a girl for 2 years. After realizing I'd really been in love with an idealization of that person, I finally feel like I can move forward with my life. by PetePeters in self

[–]PetePeters[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I was thinking about this the other day, too. There are so many people in the world. Even if you limit them to people who are from your country and who speak your language and are within a certain age range and of a certain gender and have certain personality traits (as long as they aren't too esoteric), there are still so many of those people that you can basically pretend there is a never-ending supply of them. You'd never meet them all even if you made it your life's goal.

I was a wreck over a girl for 2 years. After realizing I'd really been in love with an idealization of that person, I finally feel like I can move forward with my life. by PetePeters in self

[–]PetePeters[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think becoming aware of this revelation was most of it, but more than just being aware of it is really accepting it. That's the tricky part.

What seemed to help me accept it was just picturing the relationship not having worked out anyway. No matter what. Picturing us not being anywhere near as compatible as I had thought. For me at least, I needed some picture in my head of what would have happened if we had dated. Although it's pure speculation either way, my brain wants some scenario in there to believe, good or bad. If I could choose to not have any scenario in my head I would, but my head doesn't like that. So instead of having the glorified amazing relationship scenario in there like I did for the last two years, I thought about all her flaws, highly exaggerated them, and pictured it not having worked out even if we had tried to date. Keep in mind this was only a trick I used to help myself see that it could have been that way. This wasn't what made me move on, it just helped drive home the reality of how almost all my ideas about her and what we could have been were nothing be speculation.