I have this thing where I see a random person on the street, in the store, or in the park and it makes me picture what it would be like to be together with this person, to build a house together, have pets together, live a life together. I try not to stare as I walk past and go about my day.
For minutes to hours I have this gut-punch feeling that the love of my life just walked out of the door and I’ll never see them again. Soon after, when the stranger is all but forgotten I’ll run into the next stranger and the cycle repeats.
Somehow I believe this is a mundane and typical thing that occurs to men, maybe to non-binary people and women too? However, I’ve never spoken to anyone about this in real life. So I’d like to hear your thoughts. Does this happen to you?
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Anybody you like can be the love of your life. This notion that fate has a special person just for you is Hollywood nonsense. Find someone who’s worth it, and make them the love of your life.
Yes but… to be fair, people generally underplay the enormous importance of things like pheromones. Compatibility without pheromones working in your favour is doubtful. It’s more than just smell, but because it’s hard to sense or pin down people ascribe magical properties to it like ‘soul mate’ etc.
If that’s working for you, you have a chance at overcoming minor differences like enjoying stories about royalty and their loyal vassals resisting takeover of the galaxy by fascists versus enjoying stories about a utopian post scarcity interspecies society encountering challenges as they try to better themselves and avoid the borg and other disney thralls.
This doesn’t sound like healthy behavior or a realistic view of other people.
How often are you let down or find that your experience with someone else isn’t reciprocated?
Can’t say I’ve ever really had that train of thought. Or if I did, it was just a passing thought, not something I’d think about for minutes or hours.
I’m poly, so having multiple loves isn’t shunned as taboo in my household.
I used to have that sensation, when I was single. I haven’t had it since I’ve been married, though pursuing additional relationships isn’t forbidden for us.
Sounds like endogenous FOMO colored by situational loneliness due to social isolation.
My top recommendation would be to find social activities to participate in. Book clubs, social sports, interest-related meetups, etc.
The reason is that isolation makes it easy to develop for others feelings that are less accountable to reality. These feelings can be positive or negative, and the others can be individuals or large groups of people, but the effect is the same.
Spending time with people is the natural remedy. The more you understand others, the more you understand yourself, and the easier it becomes to appreciate others for who they are without defining your self by them (aka “attachment”).
TL;DR: Get to know people, all kinds of people, and you will discover the natural remedy for these intrusive feelings of attachment.
I have indulged in these fantasies many times - it’s not unusual to think about hypothetical futures and it’s especially not uncommon to come up with stories about those hypothetical futures. It’s even more common for you to be the main character of these hypotheticals. It’s never been compulsory, I often have to stop my mind from wandering and these thoughts are no different from any others. Fantasies like these are essentially nothing more than a fanfiction of the real world.
What’s more important is how you analyze these thoughts and what you feel about having them. If they are actually concerning to you and you are worried about controlling these types of fantasies, go to your doctor and get some referrals for therapy or counseling - many scams exist that specifically target men for especially this type of psych stuff, so try to stick to professional channels whenever possible.
I’ve only ever had that once, with the mother of my children. It was love at first sight pretty much.
When I was between the ages of, I dunno, 12 and 22? All the time. Probably not at first sight though, I mean I’d usually have at least some sense of what kind of person they are. Not so much as an adult, though.
Lookup Crappy Childhood Fairy on the tube. Then search for videos on Limerence.
So very rarely that I almost trust it.
Agree with SreudianFlip that some people do smell compatible, and others so incompatible that it wouldn’t matter how compatible they were in other ways. People do physically fit together (or not) beyond mental compatibility.
If you haven’t heard it you might like the Hozier song “Someone New”.
