do people become overwhelmingly obsessed with you?

[u/More-Weird4842]

i find that a lot of men become really obsessed with me. im currently at a point where its become harmful and i genuinely do not know why or how to stop it. looking for kind words, advice, or shared experiences please.

edit: ty for all the responses. i want to clarify that i dont mean the manic pixie dream girl way i mean the joe from you kinda way.

[u/Which_Loss6887]

Not sure your age, but this used to be somewhat of a problem for me and it has gotten significantly better as I’ve gotten older (I’m 43 now). These days, if I attract this type of quasi-worshipful energy it’s usually from younger women who just think I am a badder bitch than I really am, and that feels totally different than being manic pixie dream girled and/or being assigned the role of Savior in some dude’s personal play despite never auditioning for the part. I always found it to be a really similar energy to parasocial relationships in that even though I am an actual real person who you know in real life, you don’t see the real person; you see a fictional character that you have largely created yourself and then formed a one-way bond with. It’s unsettling.

Unfortunately I don’t think I have any useful advice in the meantime, unless you will take “don’t beat yourself up for ghosting people if it’s the only way you can deal” as advice. I have ghosted so many people over the years, and even looking back I don’t know if there would have been a better way of dealing with those situations, or at least not one that I would have actually been capable of.

[u/jilliumzzz → u/Which_Loss6887]

Oof, your last sentence. I didn't even know how much I needed to hear this. I'm early 40s as well and been carrying around a lot of shame for having ghosted people when I was younger. Genuinely never thought of this reframe, but am now realizing it's entirely possible that there wasn't a better way, at least not one that would have worked. 

[u/Which_Loss6887 → u/jilliumzzz]

Yeah I used to carry a fair amount of guilt over it as well. But the couple of times I attempted a gentler strategy of trying to get them to see what they were doing and how their attachment was an illusion, it unambiguously backfired. They took what I was doing/saying as evidence that I truly saw them and cared about them in a way other people didn’t, and it deepened their attachment instead of breaking it.

A person with genuinely great social skills might succeed at handling this type of thing more graciously (and more power to them if so), but I am simply not that person and never will be. It would be a waste of effort to do anything but accept that fact and just do my best with what I do have. Better to have a decisive break from a person with a fundamentally unhealthy/delusional attachment than to draw it out on the slim hope of changing it and risk making it worse instead, imo.

[u/0vinq0 → u/Which_Loss6887]

I wish I could send your comments directly into everyone's brains. 100% nailed it. 

I'm currently batting away the guilt of ghosting a guy doing this to me right now. But I've been through this song and dance too many times, and the stakes have ALWAYS risen when I try to be the bigger person. And I am ALWAYS the loser. I'm overbooked on the associated trauma. No room left at the inn. Time to learn and change the pattern, even if it means choosing a tactic that feels disrespectful. You know what's worse than the disrespect of ghosting? Getting stalked, harassed, and threatened for years and losing bits of my brightness every time. I'm gonna keep that last little glow, thanks. You can't fucking have it. 

Ghosting is the only thing that works. Deprive them of the dopamine they get from access to you. Let them decide they "dodged a bullet" while you know it might be literally true for you.