I realized today, in the midst of all of this, that I don't form inappropriate, premature, and obsessive emotional attachments to attractive young women in my world anymore. I defy any young, attractive women in my world to try to level that kind of accusation against me; that I've formed an inappropriate emotional attachment to them or anyone they know. Truth to tell, It's been years since I can say that about my tendencies to do that in regards to anyone in my world. But, at the beginning of this decade or thereabouts, I would try to ask young, attractive baristas and waitresses out in my world, and I would frequently run into problems. If they weren't trying to set me up for a fall from the get go, then they would try to retaliate for my gesture in the aftermath. I think these toxic, negative behaviors that these young women would engage in stemmed from a fear that I would form, or already had formed, an inappropriate, premature, and obsessive emotional attachment to them.
Reviving the experiment I first tried with Sara in 1988; where I wanted to see what would happen if, for once, I refrained from pursuing Sara as much as I could; I think that has made the biggest difference in my recovery from love addiction. One reason for that resides in the insight I gain as to why these young women engage in these horrible behaviors towards me in the first place. Shutting my end of it down makes it easier for me to see the part the other party plays in these dramas. I think these days I might be an object of curiosity to young, attractive women in my world more than anything else. They just want to see what it's like to fuck with some old dude who resides in the mental and emotional place I'm in right now.
So nowadays, I frequently find myself caught up in the individual women and whatever they have or haven't done, but like I said, today I took a step back and realized the big picture over the individual dramas that I can find myself caught up in. When I realized that I'd become horribly fixated on Cathy, a fellow student at UT, in 1984, I felt so lost and did not know how to proceed. Well, it took a long time to come up with my solutions, and these solutions came from, for the most part, self-diagnosis of the problem and self-help as to the solution, neither of which came easily or quickly.