Sorry, my computer glitched and it didn't post. Luckily, I had saved what I wrote. Anyway, here goes:
So this is about the same girl in my previous thread. Today at church, I overheard her mentioning something about a boyfriend she had previously had in the 5th grade (not a real, true boyfriend, I know, because she was only a 5th grader, but it is still nonetheless some sort of relationship with the opposite sex, possibly involving kissing). Anyway, for reasons unknown, this started to deeply depress me. I told myself it was because I wanted to be her first boyfriend and first kiss, and now I knew that if we dated, I would not be her first boyfriend and I probably would not be her first kiss. But that didn’t quite make sense. I had liked other girls before even though I knew that they had already had boyfriends and kisses. After thinking about it for a couple of hours I finally discovered the real reason why this depressed me so much.
I had thought I was falling in love with Gabby (that is her name, by the way). But that of course makes no sense; I have barely even talked to her. In reality, what I was falling in love with were my fantasies of her; what I thought she was. And in those fantasies, I had pictured her as never having had a boyfriend or a kiss. So when I was confronted with the truth, the fact that she has had a boyfriend and probably a kiss as well, I became deeply depressed.
I feel a lot better now that I realize the truth now, but a large part of me still feels sad. I feel like my fantasy Gabby has died. I’m feeling what I guess is grief, due to that fact. I don’t have much experience with grief; the last time a family member of mine died was when I was four. But I think what I am feeling is grief. It feels a lot like the way a felt when my pet fish dies, except quite a bit worse. I’m sure if I actually lost a loved one if would feel much much much worse than this, but I guess this is sort of a sneak preview.
Anyway, now I’m back to where I started with Gabby. The only two things I really know for sure about her the things that attracted me to her in the first place, and those are the fact that she is physically attractive (not particularly HOT, but she’s very cute), and the fact that she has shown a few signs of liking me. And those two facts combined make it so that I want to get to know her. Which is exactly how I felt almost two and a half months ago, when I first started feeling attracted to her. But that time, I was so desperate to fall in love that I created fantasies of us in love, and I started to fall in love the way I pictured Gabby in my fantasies. But that isn’t the real Gabby. I want to get to know the real Gabby, to see if I could fall in love with her in the future. But the problem is, I’m not quite sure how to go about doing that. So can you guys help me figure out what to do next?
I also have a second question. I want to know how to avoid falling in love with these fantasy girls in the future. It’s happened to me before Gabby, although never at this level. And honestly, this is what has prevented me from getting a girlfriend in a past. I fall in love with a fantasy version of a girl, and then I’m too afraid to talk to her in real life because I’m afraid she won’t love me back. A lot of this has to do with the fantasies I have about these girls while, *ahem*, masturbating. While sex has always played a part in these fantasies, the majority of the time, when they involved a girl that I like, I fantasized mostly about falling in love. I have gathered here and there that this isn’t normal, and that most guys my age fantasize only about sex. Lately I have noticed that I too, have been gradually fantasizing less about falling in love, and more about sex. Perhaps this shows that I am becoming a more normal teenage boy. So do you think that I should attempt to completely stop the falling in love fantasies and focus on the sexual fantasies with the girls I like, or should I cut out the fantasies about girls I like altogether and only focus on other girls, i.e. the ones that are hot but who I don’t have crushes on? And is there anything else that I need to do to stop falling in love with these fantasy versions of girls?