Is it possible for one human being to get addicted to another human being? I believe it is obviously so. It would be safe to bet that everyone has been addicted to some other person at sometime in their lives - everyone.
Who hasn't known of at least one person who has been addicted to another? Most people, if they honestly inventory their relationship history, will acknowledge they themselves have been addicted to someone.
Allow me to clarify what I mean by "addiction". I am not talking about meeting someone with an engaging personality who possesses a compatible intellect and meets your personal ideals of physical attractiveness - and they in turn find you meet their ideals of the same criteria. That right there is normal, mutually beneficial relationship stuff.
What I'm talking about is...the other side of the coin.
The toxic relationships. The obsessions, the attractions that somehow morph into a need to be with another person in a manner that is neither practical, healthy, or mutually beneficial, and for years afterwards remains unexplainable.
They are relationships we are all familiar with, one way or the other. Hell, they're the fodder of countless novels, both serious and pulp, Academy-award winning and straight-to-DVD films, hit television series that lasted decades and television shows canceled after a month.
Some of us have even watched people addicted to other people play out their sorry stories right in front of us - maybe our parents, partners of siblings or friends, maybe even...ourselves.
From this more mature vantage point (I know, I know, it's hilarious that I actually consider myself "mature"), it is easy for me to realize that on several occasions during the course of my life, I became addicted to a human being.
It wasn't anything I intended to do, of course. It was something that just happened - blindside tackle, so to speak. One minute I'm somewhat interested in a woman, and the next I can't seem to live without her.
It's truly an odd thing. I've literally spent years trying to figure out what it was that compelled me against all reason to pursue relationships with women that were in no way going to benefit me in the short or long term, and what it was that compelled me to screw up or abandon relationships with women that were healthy and mutually beneficial.
I still have no answers, for myself, or for the many, many people I have observed in similar relationships over the years.
The only thing I have been able to come up with is; "These things just happen. Move on, don't rake yourself over the coals about it."
Yeah, yeah, that career as a relationship counselor is never going to happen...
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