IHO Baconsmom and Min, painful attachments to men/boys

ReturnOfKuus

Can you tell me about your experience of extreme and painful attachments to guys, especially ones you never touched?  Like, was it more than the standard overdramatization of a teenage crush?  Did it really have to do with the guy involved or was it more the idea you had of him?  I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about, and I might be dead inside, bit I am curious.

baconsmom

Friends I fell in love with who didn't want me. It's no more interesting than that, really. 

When I refer to my "exes", it's to these men. I dated a little, and usually didn't sleep with those guys. I slutted around, but usually didn't see those guys again. And I fell passionately in love with men who just didn't want me. Probably because I was in no position to be a decent girlfriend, but I didn't see that at the time. 

MinM

This...Friends I fell in love with who didn't want me. It's no more interesting than that, really.

MinM

And it wasn't in the teenage years, it was when I was in my twenties. Specifically, later 20's - after I went to graduate school. In my early twenties, everyone was sleeping with everyone else, so I never expected anything serious out of anyone. I guess it was when I got older, I wanted to get serious, I identifiied some guys I really got along with and I allowed myself to get carried away. But yeah, it boils down to the same, "Why doesn't he love meeeeeee!" crap.

ReturnOfKuus

You really loved them?

I thought I fell in love with a guy friend once.  Well, I think I was in the process of falling in love with him, and then he started acting weird, and we made out once, and then he cut off contact with me for a whole summer.  I guess I had what might be described as a painful attachment to him, but in retrospect and even a little at the time, it wasn't really, I just wanted that feeling of falling in love with him that I felt before he started acting weird to come back, and it never did.  It's funny how fragile the early stages of love are, compared with how strong it is after some time.

I actually did date the guy a few years later, briefly, and I just felt so dead inside.  All that "if only" and once I had him, I still couldn't recapture the way I used to feel about him.

MinM

Whether I really did or not, I thought I did at the time.

baconsmom

I still do love a couple of them. I mean, not in the forefront, not with that same desperate fervor, but I think of them often and fondly and I hope they're happy. 

This happened to me until I met H - so teens through early 20s. I still occasionally email the last ex before H; he's married and well, and we discuss a lot of the same stuff we built a friendship on: writing, politics, etc. 

So, yeah, I married my first boyfriend. 

TheDuckis

I touched all the guys I ever had painful attachments to, except for one guy in high school. I spent a full year thinking he was the most perfect thing in the world. We were friends, but I didn't think he liked me. I ended up dating his best friend, and then he stopped speaking to me. Like literally told people he was no longer speaking to me.

Looking back, I would bet he liked me as much as I had liked him, but I was too young to know he was flirting, and he was too aloof to make a real move. We went out once after college, mostly because we worked in similar fields and called it networking. He hadn't changed much since high school, and the interest was gone.

MinM

H married his first girlfriend

ReturnOfKuus

Baconsmom, is there any trace of romantic love left, or just fondness and friend love?

baconsmom

I'd say it's, like, 99.5% platonic. It's 100% for most-recent ex; but there's that little part of me that would be definitely non-platonically thrilled if the other major one showed up on my doorstep telling me he'd been an idiot, and didn't I still want him. 

But then again, I don't know if that's romantic love. It's not love in the same way I love my husband - there's no sense of partnership, of equality. I think it's just that the memories of him are tied up in other things that make me feel - less settled about him. 

ReturnOfKuus

I wonder if there's a thread of that in most people's memories of unrequited love.

baconsmom

This is the wrong topic for PMS week, lemme tell you. Now I'm being all stupid nostalgic about old people and stupid sappy about H. <eyeroll at self> 

ReturnOfKuus

It's perfect for period week, though.  I have a splendid fight picked out in case I can't poop this weekend, all about Mr. Kuus's youthful unrequited crushes and lingering feelings.  It'll be glorious.

MinM

I would love if all the guys who had ever rejected me came to my front door and told me they were wrong. Not because I want them back, but because I LOVE being right. I don't talk with any of them, so there are no feelings left (except that I'd like to junk punch one or two ex's - but that is not who we are talking about  here).

The love I have with H is unlike I had with anyone else. It is a function of both his personality and us being tested (with moving so suddenly after our marriage, the infertility and now my mom's cancer) and how we have dealt with it. It passionate and companionate. At it's most base and fundamental level, our relationship is a friendship - based on mutual respect.

InksWell

Ha! I would love if all the unrequited loves came to the door. I'd let H answer. Mostly because I think my looks always parked me in the friend zone, and I married a total fox. (Min, I was H's first GF too).

I usually did "touch" the friends that I had fallen for. We'd have a one night stand, and I guess I always though that if they felt the friend chemistry, and I gave em the ol' razzle dazzle, they'd realize we had the total package and fall hopelessly in love with me. Usually all I got was a rumor about how good I was at a certain activity. H has no point of comparison, he does not know how good I am. So I can slack off. I know, that's kinda wrong.

ReturnOfKuus

But kinda funny, too