Infatuations/obsessions/"crushes"--advice?

What are your opinions on infatuation? How dies one tell the difference between being infatuated and being in love? What are your experiences with the three things listed in the topic?

Personally, I've had a crush on the same guy on/off for over three years already..nothing too serious, just random thoughts random fantasies and thoughts of him liking me back and some romantic and sexual stuff. Its not an obsession, really. I've seen him around school and he sends me pretty strange body language and signs of nervousness, etc. I guess it has to do with my entire personality changing from a turtle to a lion in the time I've known him, so to speak. I guess he doesn't like me. How does one tell if a love is a spiritual connection? How can I get rid of infatuation and crushes so I can find real, deep, true, spiritual love? (My #1 desire in the world)? What are your thoughts and opinions --any advice? Much appreciated :)

[Usako]

Oh my Gosh! I always posted a similar thread! Synchronicity is at full force this week!

I am sorry I can't give you a good answer, for I've been wondering the same myself.
I even had to Google what the feelings are when you have a crush on someone!

I guess it's a thin line these feelings share, so at times you may get confused and don't know exactly what you are feeling. When I fell in love with this guy, I was certain about my feelings, because he was drinking from a water fountain, and I thought that just staying in that moment, watching him drink, would be enough to make me happy for the rest of my life. Just watching that random, ordinary action made me feel such peace...That's when I knew I was in love with him, the deepest love I've felt so far.

I hear all these people asking if it's possible to fall in love with someone they just know online, and so many responses of people saying it's possible...but then how do you know if it's love when they haven't met them personally? Not saying they haven't really felt that, I just wonder how they know.

Originally Posted by CelestialRain

...How does one tell if a love is a spiritual connection? How can I get rid of infatuation and crushes so I can find real, deep, true, spiritual love?...

Can only speak from my own experience, of course, but the difference between a 'spiritually connected relationship' and a 'crush' relationship, is like the difference between the freedom and vastness of space, versus the confines of a paddling pool.

Once you've experienced the former, you can never be satisfied with the latter.

Everything in life is a learning curve, even 'crushes'.

There's no way to 'get rid of them', but they'll dissolve naturally enough when you're ready for that kind of spiritually connected love.

When it arrives, you'll know the difference instantly.

Hugs
MorningMist

Aw, thanks both of you! It just seems so bad to be here with all these crushes when I really crave a deep, spiritual, romantic love. Thanks for helping out :)

Many years ago (darn I feel so old) I fell in love (I thought) with a Mexican girl who came to work at the camp where I was also working. She spoke little English and I spoke no Spanish. But we worked to learn each others language and were able to communicate with each other, starting a relationship. Things moved fast, I was ready to, er, finalize the relationship. She was hesitant, not as sure as me. We started, a friend, my best friend at the time (I was friends with two brothers, best friends with the oldest, then we grew apart and I was hanging out with the youngest, who got me the job) interrupted us. I was very angry, screaming and yelling hoarse, defensive, Mood shattered, friendship broken beyond all repair. The committee (Christian, Baptist I think, owned the place) was unhappy with our relationship and told us constantly. Not long after all this they were sent home, and I was in essence, fired. I worked hard, digging out rocks at least as big as my head from the ground with a pickaxe in 90 degree+ weather, all to no avail. I was fired, never saw her again.

I remember seeing her as she was being driven away. I felt like my heart was ripped apart and a piece went with her. Time passed and I realized something valuable. This was infatuation, not love.

All this to give my answer. Love is deeper than a crush or infatuation. Love is more mature than a crush or infatuation too. Children, at least from my experience as a child, can have crushes with other children, but because of their maturity level they can't truly fall in love.

Infatuation is harder to pin down. You can, in my experience, only tell its over when its over. I think all of a sudden of the parable of the seeds in the New Testament. The one planted on shallow ground that sprouts up, then dies. That's infatuation - no roots.

A crush though is like a seed on the hard ground. If it grows at all it is stunted, weak, probably dies as a tender shoot. Also no roots, but unlike infatuation it does not bloom out to confuse you. It's pretty easy to tell a crush from infatuation or love.

Love is the seed that falls on the good ground. It grows up, in its own time, with deep roots and spreading leaves. The winds, rains, and weather can't kill it. This is the difference between love and the others. Real love, deep love, true love, mature love, is deep and hard to destroy. It goes beyond the physical to something deeper. You love someone, as they are. Appearances, physicality and other shallow attributes have no bearing. Love truly is blind. It will cross borders, races, languages, religions, and anything else in its path. Two people have a connection at a level deeper than anything else.

That's how you know. If you love her (I'll use her since I'm male) it doesn't matter how she looks. You love who she is, inside. You love her, sick or healthy, fat or thin, mad or happy. In fact you even love her little foibles, her personality quirks. Actually these things make you love her more.

When you love someone like that, then you are experiencing true love, not just the heat of passion (infatuation), or simple attraction (crush), even though, in love, you experience both of these, and love.

Maybe that's why I'm still single. Some people can love very deeply. To the point its scary. Maybe I'm one of those, and that's why I understand this, even though I have never experienced it.
- DreamBliss

[Cosmicheart]

Originally Posted by DreamBliss

Many years ago (darn I feel so old) I fell in love (I thought) with a Mexican girl who came to work at the camp where I was also working. She spoke little English and I spoke no Spanish. But we worked to learn each others language and were able to communicate with each other, starting a relationship. Things moved fast, I was ready to, er, finalize the relationship. She was hesitant, not as sure as me. We started, a friend, my best friend at the time (I was friends with two brothers, best friends with the oldest, then we grew apart and I was hanging out with the youngest, who got me the job) interrupted us. I was very angry, screaming and yelling hoarse, defensive, Mood shattered, friendship broken beyond all repair. The committee (Christian, Baptist I think, owned the place) was unhappy with our relationship and told us constantly. Not long after all this they were sent home, and I was in essence, fired. I worked hard, digging out rocks at least as big as my head from the ground with a pickaxe in 90 degree+ weather, all to no avail. I was fired, never saw her again.

I remember seeing her as she was being driven away. I felt like my heart was ripped apart and a piece went with her. Time passed and I realized something valuable. This was infatuation, not love.

All this to give my answer. Love is deeper than a crush or infatuation. Love is more mature than a crush or infatuation too. Children, at least from my experience as a child, can have crushes with other children, but because of their maturity level they can't truly fall in love.

Infatuation is harder to pin down. You can, in my experience, only tell its over when its over. I think all of a sudden of the parable of the seeds in the New Testament. The one planted on shallow ground that sprouts up, then dies. That's infatuation - no roots.

A crush though is like a seed on the hard ground. If it grows at all it is stunted, weak, probably dies as a tender shoot. Also no roots, but unlike infatuation it does not bloom out to confuse you. It's pretty easy to tell a crush from infatuation or love.

Love is the seed that falls on the good ground. It grows up, in its own time, with deep roots and spreading leaves. The winds, rains, and weather can't kill it. This is the difference between love and the others. Real love, deep love, true love, mature love, is deep and hard to destroy. It goes beyond the physical to something deeper. You love someone, as they are. Appearances, physicality and other shallow attributes have no bearing. Love truly is blind. It will cross borders, races, languages, religions, and anything else in its path. Two people have a connection at a level deeper than anything else.

That's how you know. If you love her (I'll use her since I'm male) it doesn't matter how she looks. You love who she is, inside. You love her, sick or healthy, fat or thin, mad or happy. In fact you even love her little foibles, her personality quirks. Actually these things make you love her more.

When you love someone like that, then you are experiencing true love, not just the heat of passion (infatuation), or simple attraction (crush), even though, in love, you experience both of these, and love.

Maybe that's why I'm still single. Some people can love very deeply. To the point its scary. Maybe I'm one of those, and that's why I understand this, even though I have never experienced it.
- DreamBliss

It sounds like you have experienced true love. Maybe not with another... But in life itself.

CelestialRain, I want to reply your question when I get a chance... I have a feeling it might be therapeutic for me!

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by CelestialRain

... when I really crave a deep, spiritual, romantic love...

That is the natural longing of the soul or the heart.
That craving can only be fulfiled when one knows the Love of God within
one's own self and all around them.
Don't believe me? Keep trying and see after years where it takes you.

"The Divine Romance" by Paramahansa Yogananda might be of interest.

I believe in the Donald Trump Method....go to the top...don't mess with
subordinates.

Doesn't mean a partner couldn't be...well, 'nice'.

(This will probably not be a popular message here, oh well.
It's still the way things are.)

[Usako]

@DreamBliss: First I was angry at those people in your story, I'm sorry to those who are religious, but it seems too many times religion is like a disease, only pushing people away and creating wars, etc.

Then I was going "Awwwww" until the end of your post, it was so beautiful, it really touched me and I totally agree that when you are truly in love, you'll still love that person without caring about physical appearances or instead of judging their "flaws", you'll only be motivated to help them grow.

Originally Posted by Suikagirl

@DreamBliss: First I was angry at those people in your story, I'm sorry to those who are religious, but it seems too many times religion is like a disease, only pushing people away and creating wars, etc.

Christians, as well as those from other belief systems, and everyone in general in some form or another, can get misguided. I am, by my beliefs, a Christian and I know this personally. The road to hell is truly paved with good intentions. In fact good intentions can all too easily blind us to the truth.

When we do something to protect the reputation of our God, or worse our church, or even worse our political beliefs, our race, or at the very worst ourselves, we deceive ourselves that this is something that needs our protection, or is even worth protecting, and we cause suffering to others as well as ourselves.

At some point, if humans are ever to evolve spiritually, we will learn to let God, whatever our belief or non-belief of Him, Her, Them or It may be, defend Him, Her, It, Them Self. We will drop our religions, political biases, race identifiers and anything else we draw like a line in the sand to separate us from them, which merely enforces the ego.

This will leave us open to each other and allow us to love each other. This will allow us to far more easily fall deeply in love with the right person. What is love ultimately but a blending of two into one, the letting down of one's guard and a process that does not recognize, in fact completely ignores, any walls and lines? When we destroy the walls, let the winds rub out the lines, and stop trying to separate ourselves, then love can freely work in us and through us.

I've since forgiven my friend, that committee, my boss, even any blame I would place on my God for at the very least not helping me in this situation. Unforgiveness is just another line, another wall, and all these walls and lines do is cause suffering on both sides.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm darn tired of suffering, so I am in the process of removing all my lines and walls. For example, I might have Christian beliefs, but I will not label myself a Christian, and I will not follow the letter of the law of Christian religion. I won't even use the Bible as more than a guide from which I base my beliefs, until a belief is soundly proven wrong by experience.

The result? I am open to all religions. I would never hurt or kill someone because they believe differently than I do. I am free to wait and see, for example, if the Muhammad Prophet Jesus will come as the Qu'ran says, or Jesus as God's son will come as the Bible says, or perhaps if He will come in a different way entirely, or even at all. I can believe in what the Bible says about Jesus while remaining open to other possibilities. There is no need to fight and squabble over the "truth", whatever that is, because it will be revealed in time. If and when Jesus comes, He will surely settle the matter Himself!

So I am free to live in the present moment, free to let others believe as they will, and free to share my beliefs if asked, but otherwise to remain silent, open, loving and aware.

Defending my beliefs just closes me to any others. Killing others in the defense of what I believe bloodies my hands, taints my soul, and encourages hatred on both sides. Hatred is a cancer that destroys love while reinforcing walls and lines. Surely any God that exists, in whatever form He, She, Them or It exists, would be sickened by my actions, and displeased by all the people I failed to reach, because I closed myself off to them, tried to force my beliefs on them, killed them in defense of my beliefs, in His name, which only served to further close myself off from them and made it harder for Him to reach them. If I am God's hands, shouldn't I be open and loving, rather than closed and carrying a sword?

Only blinding good intentions and ignorance cause anyone to think that they will change someone else's beliefs, or the person themselves, by force. People can only change when they are ready, when they want to, on their schedule. You can lead a horse to water... Trying to force anyone to change is to cause them to build walls, draw lines, even as you do, and this only brings more suffering.

Enough blood has been shed for walls and lines! If blood must be shed, then let it be done only out of love and only for love! Chances are not a drop will fall!
DreamBliss

[Usako]

Wow DreamBliss I love what you wrote, if more people thought this way, we wouldn't have so many problems in this world, so much hate, discrimination, wars...Religion should have been a tool to bring us together, opposed to what it really did, pushing us apart and killing those who don't believe in the same.

I guess that's why most spiritually evolved people are "Religion-less"

On this other forum I used to visit months ago, well the hate was everywhere, Christians would come and fill the Spiritual Board with quotes and texts from the Bible, trying to force their beliefs on others and disregarding any spiritual experiences, saying they were demonic. Even calling this Muslim guy "Satanic".
I had to run away from that, which is why I got here, and I am so glad I did!