‘It was all in my head.’
By ANONYMOUS
Craig* was everything that I wanted in a lover. To the romantic in me, he was the Lancelot to my Guinevere. The Tristan to my Isolde. The Mr Darcy to my Elizabeth Bennet.
He was intelligent, funny, older, handsome, with these amazing deep brown eyes, a knee-jerking smile that never failed to make me grin until my cheeks hurt and above all he shared my infatuation with the written word.
He was also a writer and an incredibly talented one at that. As both a writer and a man, I found him interesting, creative, complex and a bit of a bold rebel who frequently took risks in his writing for the sake of pure principal and satire. Seeing as I have a huge thing for writers, this made him even sexier in my eyes.
Of course, I wanted him. I wanted him more than I had wanted any man. I fell for him and I fell for him hard.
However, there is never going to be a happily ever after for me and him.
You see, Craig is real. ‘Our relationship’ however, was a fantasy I concocted in my head.
I had only communicated with him on the internet and in person a few times. Nevertheless, I found myself instantly attracted to him, even though I knew nothing about him as a person. I slowly began fantasising about having a romantic relationship with him. The kind of relationship that never materialises in real life, but is conceptulised in great detail in your mind. It’s like a crush, but one you don’t act on.
.
Whenever I had a spare moment, I would stare off into space and think about how perfect life would be if I were together with him. I would play out all the possible firsts and how all of them would be in my mind. I made up my own intensity and the length of our relationship. Our first date. Dressed to the nines for dinner, movies and dancing. Our first kiss. As we watched the sun set on a beach in Fiji. Our wedding. A destination wedding on a beach in Bali.
There were many times when I would remind myself that the relationship I was dreaming of was just a romantic illusion created in my mind and that I needed to stop being so damn delusional. But I couldn’t help myself. I liked my perfect fantasy relationship. I wanted to stay there. I was addicted to my fantasy like some people are addicted to gambling, drugs, sex and social media.
I always knew my boundaries and I never went any further than checking his Facebook and Twitter on the odd occasion. I never went as far as stalking him or trying to call him. I want to make that clear.
I was only smacked back into reality when I ran into him at a bar and smiled at him. He looked straight at me and walked past me.
That’s when I really realised:
Craig has never thought of me the same way he thought of me in my mind and it doesn’t matter how intense my feelings were or how genuine I felt in my idea of Craig, it is just not real.
The illusion dissolved, the pictures in my head disappeared and I was left with wondering if I needed the number of a good shrink, a curiously lonely feeling, and a bottle of French bubbly waiting for me at home to help me grieve for my fantasy relationship.
The author of this post is a Mamamia reader who wanted to remain anonymous.
Have you fantasised about or created a relationship in your head that doesn’t really exist?
Comments
34 Comments so far
I had my first sober, midweek sleep over this week with the guy I’m “seeing” (eg have slept with while drunk a few times). I went to sleep feeling sexually satisfied but not really particularly into him, as it’s just a holiday fling. I then spent the whole night having incredibly intense dreams in which we were deeply in love and had been together for ages.
As a result, I woke up in the morning feeling like we were in love and super close, whereas he had somehow missed our intense dream-relationship (y’know, cause he was asleep during it) and therefore still thought we were just relative strangers.
Now I’m having to actively restrain myself from texting him every two seconds being like “I miss you!! Can I stay again tonight??”. That would be perfectly acceptable to me, since in my (dream-addled) mind we’re IN LOVE – but weird to him, since we barely know each other. Damn you, brain!
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I’m so glad I have a forum to let it all out. I’ll set the scene. I have kids and in a loveless marriage. My husband has been out of sorts for probably most of our married life. Things aren’t great and unfortunately even the kids can pick it up.
What’s not helping is my crush at work. I have never felt such a strong feeling or connection with anyone. I literally feel like a school girl around him and don’t know what to say. I know he is attracted to me too. But alas he is just a crush and my fantasies are just that. I know we will never be. But I can’t tell you how much he consumes my thoughts. How do you get over it when it never began?
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Oh Anon, I feel for you. The difficult part is that you won’t ever get to experience the reality check that the guy at work is probably all wrong for you.
I had a similar thing when I was with my fiance. We ended up breaking up and my first thought was “at least now I can be with X” (X being a work friend I’d been very close with for years). X then tried to assault me and we ended up in criminal court. I’m sure that’s NOT how your scenario will pan out (!), but it was a huge wake up call to me that most of our relationship (of how well I knew him, what a beautiful person he was, etc) was all in my head, and that I actually didn’t know him.
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Saw a guy one day and felt a strange connection and knew nothing about him and i thought about him for 3 years before I actually met him out and have been together ever since!
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This is so lovely. I saw a man years (I mean YEARS) ago. Felt the most amazing connection. Forgot about it. Then saw him again 2 1/2 years ago. Felt it all over again. Haven’t met yet. But it feels special. Can’t stop the feeling this time.
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I have a theory that some of us happen upon our soulmate through tapping into that connection we have with them. And by staying in that, we are drawn together. Truth, trust, love and hope are all part of the key to this happening.
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I hope you don’t all hate me for this…
I fantasied, Oh Yes. My perfect man. The bad boy I had known my entire life (Our Mum’s being best friends). He was so bad, getting arrested and hanging out with the wrong crowd. I was a teenager, the good girl who stayed in school and got good grades. With a five year difference, little 13 year old was probably so annoying. Yet, there I was 13, trying to impress Michael, the bad boy I wanted so much. I asked him for a ciggerate once, it would have been my first, and I hated them dreadfully. I was met with a barrage of abuse from him; “Don’t be so bloody stupid Sandy, you are a smart girl, so young”
I admit it, my crush escalated into love as I entered my adult years. Even when in a relationship, when I saw Michael, my bad boy, my heart skipped a beat (Just to make it clear, I never cheated).
Eventually, his bad boy ways caught up with him and into jail he went. Even when I visited him, knowing how stupid he had been I loved him still (I was single by this stage). I told him in a visiting room how I felt, and I left with a broken heart. He told me I knew what he was like, he had never been in a relationship, he didn’t want to be attached. Maybe it was because he was hot, I mean sexy as! I am no catch prize I can tell you that, I wasn’t good enough, he could get Miranda Kerr if he wanted her.
So out of jail he came, and right back to how he used to be.
And somehow, I don’t know how, I snagged him. I snagged the unsnaggable. Four months into the relationship I had to tell the commitment phobic man of my dreams that I was pregnant. I knew he would take off, his life wasn’t fit for raising a child, and I guess I knew it, my child couldn’t be born into his world.
But… He changed, literally overnight. We have been together for over 6 years now, he works hard, stays inside the law and is an excellent father.
I don’t know how I did it, as I said, I’m not a pretty girl. But I did it.
I can happen ladies, maybe I am the exception, but it’s possible. After a lifetime of fantasy I am living it. Never give up!
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That really was a fascinating read sandy ! Thanks for sharing
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Oh! Swooning.
I’ve found my next fantasy man … Your husband!
Good on you, sandy!
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I hear you. I spent months obsessed with someone I had only exchanged about 10 emails with, work related ones at that, and maybe we’d spoken on the phone for about 30 seconds once. I stalked him online relentlessly, I really hope I wasn’t found out. I had a whole fantasy relationship in my head worked out. In my defence I was going through a very difficult patch in my life at the time and needed the escapism. Once he tweeted me back (not that he follows me) and it literally made my week. I’m ‘over him’ now, but it literally took me months.
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At seeing this heading I thought it was going to be about someone with a mental issue and they’d come out the other side of it okay and then perpahs tips on how to help a friend like this.
But in the lighter sense.. yes I’ve definately done this before – maybe not so much into the future and detail and more into the imagining how a perfect date/weekend/sleepovers would go with a crush etc..
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Me, too. I thought it was going to be an article about a pathological liar. Now there’s an idea for you, Mamamia. I went to school and uni with two such people and would love to know why this happens. Fascinating stuff.
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That would be very interesting as I bet sooo many people will have known someone or had a friend like this.
I was in the same spot maybedaisy it boggles the mind but how do you help them?! Why did they start lying? etc..
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Apparently, I fantasied my entire marriage, when in actual fact, I had no idea who he was.
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Been there too Anon. Sucky place to be.
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At first I thought, ‘what a nutjob’.
Then I realise I’ve been guilty of this too, LOL.
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Oh yeah, I fantasise about could-be relationships within the first five minutes of meeting someone I’m attracted to! Perfectly normal, I think.
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Oh yes… Every last detail down to the color of the walls in the guest bedroom of our dream home hehehe…. Ain’t fantasies grand?
Have my own real life fairy tale now, different man but I think I dreamt him into life <3
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I have had an online crush just recently through a dating site. Never met him and haven’t even spoken to him but, yes stalked a little over the net (wonder if this crush is partly to do with not knowing if the person really exists)? It was a genuine crush, excited to receive messages, and some messages even managed a belly laugh from me many times! A friend of mine said ‘it’s not Normal’ and I said ‘he’s, taking the groundhog out of my groundhog day’. I know it’s not normal but enjoyed those ‘crush’ feelings again.
I’ve also been told that it’s mostly disappointing when you meet them because you’ve built them up so much in your head. I agree so would like to be disappointed but my online crush has distanced himself and is off on some safari in very far away places
Yes I know how it all sounds but genuinely miss my month long funny emails and the entertainment value of the mystery.
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My fantasy relationship is currently with Tom Hardy…
I think because I grew tired of fantasizing about a proposal from the ACTUAL love of my life, who is real, and will just wait for the real thing to happen.
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I can kind of relate to this story. It happened to me that I met a man that I just could not stop thinking about. I even remember telling my mother that I had met the man I was going to marry, I just didn’t know how he and I were ever going to become a “we”. I definitely daydreamed about him…a lot!
Short of it is, I met this guy in a pub, we seemed to click, we had a goodnight kiss and went our separate ways. As this was when Facebook was starting to take off, we became FB friends and exchanged the occasional FB message. Yet, I just could not shake him or the thought of him and kept thinking there was something more to “us” even though there wasn’t an us, and the chance of there ever being an us seemed very remote. We lived in different states, only talked occasionally over FB if there was a reason to, and we didn’t meet face-to-face again almost a year later, when he happened to be moving overseas. As it turned out, he had been thinking of me in the same way and now we are happily married. That was over 5 years ago now. It blows me away every time I think about how we ended up together.
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I did that, then I married him
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My fantasy is not so much about a particular Mr Right.
It’s more about having a house on my own, that I can renovate to my style without compromise, and not have clean up after messy, selfish teens and a messy, selfish partner. That is my “happy place”.
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I fantasise about my perfect house too. But I’m so desperate for extra space that on several occasions I have actually dreamed an extra room into my house and I have woken up thinking “I should totally keep my ironing board (etc) in there” before I remember that there is no room where I just imagined one.
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Oh, me too, Flirby! I do most of my planning when I can’t sleep in the middle of the night – it’s just so soothing to have everything exactly how I want it!
And Vivacious, I do that too. Only I always find room after glorious room tucked away behind concealed doors. Then I wake up wondering where I’m going to sleep tonight
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Perfectly normal, I think.
Even though I’m in a very happy relationship, I am constantly in fantasy relationships with TV and book characters. Current fantasy is Sir Guy from BBC’s Robin Hood.
I don’t think it’s that different to being in love with a ‘real life’ person that you don’t know very well and are creating a personality for.
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Oh yes, Richard Armitage. If I were to have a fantasy, he’d be front and centre.
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I think every female on the planet has – at some stage created a fantasy relationship in their. Whether or not they went to the extent of the wedding.
Its like when you were little and played mummy and daddy with your dolls, your pretend “husband” was always a really cute boy you secretly had a crush on. I guess its a way for us to ecaspe the goings on of everyday life.
To say that you had never had these fantascies would be a straight out lie.
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Never had a fantasy relationship. Definitely been guilty of too much ‘forward thinking’ though! Imagining the wedding after a few dates with a guy, haha. Ahh the folly of my youth.
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I’m guilty of this. But i realise it’s just fantasy and I know the reality is it’s just a silly crush, so i’ve never thought it was a problem.
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Guilty as well. My silly crush was on a charmer at the office. A crush shared along with every other single female in the postcode. It wasn’t a problem for me as I am fairly level headed (or perhaps cynical would be a better word) when it comes to affairs of the heart. My short trip into fantasy ended well though. I’m not the least embarrassed, call him a friend, and enjoy ribbing him when he is being a shnook with the ladies. (which is often)
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Ah yes, the old office crush. I had one, then he started being an unhelpful d1ck to several poeple (incl. me) and takgin himsefl too seriously, so it died down conveniently. This it turn allowed me to start being dry and sarcastic towards him and not giving a stuff really, and then he unexpectedly started laughing about this with me… and gosh, I love when men enjoy my wit. It is pretty much a guaranteed entry tinto my pants. Not every man can appreciate a funny & smart woman I’ve found.
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I also have a fantasy relationship. Let’s call him, ‘Mike,’ … because that’s his name. But he’s so much more than ‘Mike.’ He’s something of an idiot, well, he was when he was younger. He’s reformed now. He’s debonaire, smart, funny, a multi-media personality and handsome … so handsome. Richard Gere handsome. I daydream about living with him on a dairy farm, swimming in the dam, letting the newborn calves suck our fingers, fluffy ducks waddling up the grassy lane, sitting on the verandah in the cool evening air with a six pack. Even though he sends coded messages of love over the airwaves to me, I know that I’m only one of dozens in his harem. Yes, it hurts. It hurts like hell.
So to Mike, my love, my fantasy – I’ve never met you but how I love you.
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newborn calves suck our fingers….cute!
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