Love and Obsession

It’s him, looking as sexy as ever. I could tell from the wrinkles on his brow that he had a long hard day, but his mood never changed my attraction to him. Actually, all I want to do is hold him and let him know everything was going to be alright. I move just a little closer to him on the train so I could breathe in the musky scent of his cologne mixed with his sweat and feel slightly light-headed being this close to him. I stumble ever so slightly to brush my body against his and finally feel his chiseled body against mine. Oh my God! It feels better than I ever thought it would. I step away as I regain my composure and notice a little smile play across his thick lips. It only confirms what I already know in my heart, we were meant to be together. As I follow him off the train, I know that soon I will have the courage to ‘bump’ into him at the coffee shop he goes to everyday and ask him out. But for now, I’ll just enjoy this sexy-as-hell man from a distance.

Does the scene above describe the thoughts of an obsessed person or someone who is in love with someone they haven’t yet spoken to? I don’t think it is easy to interpret the answer to that question. Obsession is often a matter of perspective and can sometimes be interpreted as love. Its interpretation is usually dependent on the object of attention and the observer, not to mention the interpreter of the scenario. For example, if the observer above is a woman would you consider her actions sweet? If it’s a man, does it become a bit more creepy? The scenario automatically becomes significantly more disturbing if the scenario includes an adult observer and a child object doesn’t it? Does it become less so if the scenario occurs between two young children?

Let’s take the scenario further and imagine that the observer and object meet and hit it off. Now they are dating and the object is thinking about the observer consistently. They both want to be together every spare moment they have. Are they in love with each other or are they obsessed with one another? This sounds to me like how most of us would describe falling in love; at least in the early stages of the relationship. So how do we define obsession and clearly differentiate it from love? Is there a clear answer? I believe it is an important question to answer; especially in this age of #metoo. I doubt however, that all people that obsess about other people are actually aware that what they are doing can be called obsession; they might just think they are in love.

At the end of the day, I’m not 100 percent sure the label we apply to the feeling is as important as understanding the danger of any type of extreme thought about anything and the rightness or wrongness of the behaviour that might result because of it. We must therefore consider teaching our sons and daughters the importance of respecting other people and the appropriateness of certain thoughts and actions. It is after all difficult for a person to identify when his or her thoughts have crossed a line of normalcy into the danger zone of obsession, which could quite easily lead to inappropriate or dangerous behavior. These discussions are worth having regardless of how uncomfortable they may be or how obvious we think certain behaviors or thoughts are. Once we talk about obsession openly we can define it and handle it appropriately.