Unfortunately, unlike alcohol or drug addiction, obsession is often harder to kick.
One person I talked to was obsessed with someone for six years. My own worst case lasted a good year. (Though, like alcohol or drugs, some would say you never really get over it. You think you can handle that one social drink, but bam, even a taste sets you off again.)
No one wants to become hopelessly obsessed with someone they can't have, or wouldn't necessarily want if they could have them. It's one of those inexplicable things that happens, like losing socks at the laundromat.
No one chooses to sit at home waiting for the telephone to ring or to check their answering machine 300 times a day, just in case. When you're obsessed, you have no control over your behaviour. You have to act like a complete idiot.
When you're obsessed, aliens temporarily possess you and make you do things like comb all the bars frequented by the object of your lust, "just looking for a friend."
They cause you to get really drunk every time you do see him (obsession is very thirsty work) and inevitably end up blathering about how cool you are with the whole thing. "I just want to sleep with you, really."
He, succumbing to the ego stroke, decides to believe it and goes home with you. And you, watching him dress immediately upon awakening, end up hating yourself, knowing you've just broken every rule in the girl book.
But then obsessions go against all the girl book rules anyway.
No way are you supposed to walk 13 miles out of your way, while en route to your job, to "coincidentally" run into a guy on his way to work.
Calling drunk or "just dropping by" his house at 3 am is also less than empowering. Mind you, real pros do their best to avoid this. Mastering the art of obsession means salvaging the maximum amount of pride possible. For this, it's best if you have experience on both sides, then you know what doesn't work. Having been an obsessee at some point in your life is the key to learning the tricks of being a successful obsessor. Cardinal rule: do not do unto others what you would not want them to do unto you.
During the denial stage, this, of course, means you'll be doing a lot of wallowing, either alone or amongst friends. Of course, once your friends are sick of hearing about your misery, you mostly end up alone sitting in your apartment listening to Barry White songs for hours on end, replaying those three dates you had and investigating possible meanings for every word he uttered. "I wonder if when he said he wanted to work things out with his ex-girlfriend, he meant he wanted to dump her and be with me?"
When your contributions to conversations are all prefaced with, "That's just like (insert whatever code name you have assigned obsessee)," it should become clear that you need help. But while it quickly becomes painfully obvious to everyone around you that you're in severe need of the twelve-step program, we all know that "you have to want to quit."
More likely you'll instead enter into the rationalization stage. While all your friends have fully concluded the guy's a jerk and can't understand what such a great person like you sees in him, you make excuses for him. And besides, what's wrong with a little obsession, the masochist in us says, it's better than nothing, right? It's true that obsession can sometimes be a good stop-gap measure (nothing like a bit of heartache and rejection to make you feel alive). It just takes some of us a little longer to realize that the energy would be much better spent on getting a life.
