Dear Lynda,
I am a 38-year old male, and so far in my life I have been alone. I have had friends in the past, but never a romantic relationship. I recently moved to a new location for a job. I’m not too outgoing, and more recently I have been under-going treatment for depression and social-anxiety. My question is this. I have tried entering into romantic relationships before, but they usually go nowhere.
Over the past few weeks, I discovered a web site on the internet where there is a very good-looking woman who poses for photographs either semi or fully nude. I find myself wishing for some kind of relationship with this woman (I’m not talking a romantic relationship — merely a friendship). I know there are several things that would prevent an actual relationship from happening (1. She’s married, and 2. She lives in Canada, and I’m in Indiana), but I still find myself wishing for some way to let her know how I feel without scaring her away. I realize in the business she’s in, many guys see her nude on a regular basis, but over the past two nights, I have had the pleasure of talking with her over the computer.
I’ve even gone ahead and bought her a Christmas present. True this is highly irregular, but I merely wish for her to know I care. Tonight when talking to her, I saw how other guys were talking to her, and telling her things to do to her body, and this just turned my stomach. I told her I’m not that way, and I always try to treat a person as a person, and not an object. As I said before, I’m not blind, and I realize an actual relationship with her would be impossible, but I feel I would truly wish to let her know how I feel and see if a friendship can develop. Do you have any advice on how best I should proceed (if at all)? I don’t want to go through the rest of my life alone, and at least with this girl, I have someone else to think of besides myself and how my life is going.
Thanks,
Hopelessly Confused
Dear Hopelessly Confused,
I’ve fallen into this trap myself. Before I got married I used to spend a lot of time at a site which had a private cam into someone’s life. I got enthralled with his life, and even felt that I just wanted to talk to him.
You probably won’t want to take this advice because you sound well hooked, but I’m going to give it anyway…
This woman is not for you. This is no way for you to be developing a friendship. I heavily recommend that you immediately take all bookmarks of her site off of your computer. Take a break from her for at least a week to be able to look objectively at what is going on here. That’s what I had to do. It was hard, but surprisingly quick. My obsession faded within days and I saw it for what it was, a lonely woman who enjoyed seeing into the life of a man.
There are millions of people on the internet that are lonely and would appreciate the companionship of an obviously caring man as yourself. Join a personals site, or even a pen-pals club and free yourself of this obsession. It’s like quitting smoking, you just have to go cold-turkey. Get chatting with heaps of people from all over the world and you’ll find that lots of other people initially fell into this seductive trap before realising that it’s a waste of time. Give your attention and friendship to someone who needs a friend. That way there’s two people who don’t need to be lonely anymore.
Lynda
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