I can't stop thinking about this guy from burning man

September 8, 2008 6:30 AM

So I met this guy at burning man. We WERE on alot of drugs but I felt like I'd known him forever. Now a week later, I can't get him out of my head & it's driving me crazy.

He is a friend of a friend of a friend and I met him a couple of days before I left. We spent most of the rest of the time together and at points I felt closer to him than I have to anyone since....I can't even remember. There was just so much craziness going on that I think we were both kind of overwhelmed by the moment, and didn't really talk about what was going on.

Now I wish we had, because I'm starting to feel a little bit insane. I just keep missing him & it's almost physically painful. This has never really happened to me before - I got out of a 7 year relationship a couple of years ago and everyone I've dated since has been way more into it than me. So maybe it's just my karmic desserts. But I'm not sure what to do. Should I try to pursue something? or try to stop thinking about it?

He lives about 6 hours away and we've talked on the phone once since then, but it was a pretty mundane conversation. He is kind of shy, and I have zero experience making the first move in this type of situation. I don't even know what that would entail. We are never really in each others' cities. On the phone there were times it seemed like he wanted to say more, but I do realize that wishful thinking is a powerful force. It kind of seems like, he is trying to be realistic about it, which I really wish I could do too.

I am still kind of shocked that I am feeling this way; recently I've been pretty cynical about love/relationships/soulmates. But now I feel like I'm in middle school, I can't stop thinking about him, and I just don't know what to do. I guess I need to somehow figure out what's going on with him, but if I tell him what's going on with me I'll sound like a lunatic! Do you think it WAS just the drugs? Is it crazy to be obsessing about a guy that I don't really know & doesn't live nearby? I've been trying to go on dates & keep busy & not think about it, but it's not working that well. I don't even know what I would ultimately want the outcome of the situation to be, I like where I'm at, I don't really want to get into some long-distance thing. But it's not rational thoughts that are keeping me up at night & I just wish i could get some resolution/relief!

posted by anonymous to human relations (16 comments total)

You met the dude while you were both on drugs during a crazy event that is designed to create intense, personal questions and bring together people who would otherwise be social outliers in their own lives.

SLOW. THE FUCK. DOWN.

Initiate more phone conversations. Plan a trip to visit him. Explain you really enjoyed hanging out with him during Burning Man and would like to do so more. See what he's like WITHOUT the influence of drugs and the atmosphere of the event. Remind yourself people can seem very, very different than they actually are when you and they are not in a sober state.
posted by schroedinger at 6:44 AM on September 8, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

Yeahhhhh it was probably the drugs.

Just kidding, partially. I have been in relationships that got their kick-start during drug-fueled debauchery and sometimes I feel like the drugs created a sense of bonding just because we knew we were in the same situation.

To put it in perspective (based on my own experiences), one of my most intense and longest relationships and even friendships was ruined by drug use. Lets just say drugs brought us together and we stayed together for years, but as I started to veer away from drugs and started looking for jobs, graduating and all that, she stayed the drug-addled course and eventually chose drugs over me.

The thing I took out of it is be careful when you are getting involved with someone who uses drugs also. The reasoning is that sometimes with a lack of other things to do, or during more "boring times" the relationship will revert back to that first drug-fueled frenzy just to try and get that spark back, or like in my case my partner wasn't strong enough to deal with addiction in the first place.

I'm nowhere near conservative and am trying to give advice without sounding like a hypocrite, I've done almost everything under the sun. I'm just saying that maybe you should just be careful and think about what you are getting yourself into.

Good Luck!
posted by OuttaHere at 6:45 AM on September 8, 2008

What Schroedinger said.

Find some common ground OTHER than burning man or drugs.

ie. Don't go visit him and roll 3 nights straight and then pretend you bonded all weekend. I would bond with a stuffed animal if I was that fucked up : ).

Regardless I wish you best of luck!
posted by OuttaHere at 6:48 AM on September 8, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

For what it's worth, my business partner met his wife at Burning Man. They met through friends of friends of friends. They too had way too many drugs during the event. But now they are happily married after 3 years and have a child together.

I say go for it.
posted by cazoo at 6:48 AM on September 8, 2008

It's infatuation. It is just like that feeling in middle school. It's OK. It's normal.

I guess I need to somehow figure out what's going on with him, but if I tell him what's going on with me I'll sound like a lunatic!

Nothing to figure out here. You're just trying to protect yourself from feeling rejected if he doesn't feel the same way, so you're preemptively trying to guess. You can't guess, especially from six hours away. But you can't tell him how you feel, because you don't really know. You admit it's irrational. You admit you don't know where you want this to go. You barely know this guy. You don't know anything at this point, so there's nothing to tell him.

Just chill for a few days until you think you can call him without it having to be this spectacular mind-blowing conversation. Then call him. It can be mundane. Most of life is pretty mundane; I suspect that's why some people take drugs in the first place. It's OK. You're suffering because you want to know what's going on, right now, what's going to happen with this guy, how he feels, whether it was the drugs, etc. You're suffering because you want it to go a certain way, and you don't know whether it will or not. Trust me, you'll find all that out in due time. Until then, just relax and enjoy the feeling of having connected with someone. And connect with him. Call him, without expectations, and just enjoy his (long-distance) presence.
posted by desjardins at 6:50 AM on September 8, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Have a soul-baring conversation with him. Tell him what you're telling us. Tell him "it's driving me crazy, and I have to find out if there's more to this than just what happened at Burning Man." Tell him you want to get together for a weekend, soon. Then do it.

There's always some difference between our true selves and how we're perceived by others. The experience you had at Burning Man could tend to exaggerate that difference, so he might be very different from your picture of him. So be prepared for that.

Who knows what will happen. Back in consensus reality, the spark might be gone. You might find each other intolerable. But at least you'll know. If he's unwilling to get together, take that as evidence that he's pretty different from your picture of him, and move on.

Good luck.
posted by adamrice at 7:09 AM on September 8, 2008

He is kind of shy, and I have zero experience making the first move in this type of situation.

Yes, this is infatuation. But, this doesn't mean that you can't try to have something more with him. Love is about risk, getting burned, and then this crazy system, that's designed to make you mate even when your conscious mind might not be into it, takes over and throws you in to something while the scared part keeps setting off alarms.

You are in charge of this ship.

I'd call him up and say something along this line: "you know, I am really attracted to you--I think you are INSERT COMPLIMENTS HERE THAT TELL HIM YOU THINK HE IS A SPECIAL, VERY GOOD-LOOKING PERSON WHO YOU REALLY ENJOYED HANGING OUT WITH AND VERY MUCH WANT TO GET TO KNOW BETTER."

Drugs, schmugs. There is no "true self" who knows the "right thing to do"--its all guess work that you slowly get better at. Drugs and alcohol don't turn you into someone you weren't already. Trust that you will be able to come out on the other side of this just fine.

You have to trust that you know exactly what
posted by Ironmouth at 7:27 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Burning Man, from what I understand, is a highly liminal experience. As such, a lot of what you experience there is not meant to translate to the rest of your life.
posted by mkultra at 7:28 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Is it crazy to be obsessing about a guy that I don't really know & doesn't live nearby?

Yes. So proceed keeping that in mind. Acknowledge the infatuation for what it is, and don't fight for or against it.
posted by phrontist at 8:55 AM on September 8, 2008

a lot of what you experience there is not meant to translate to the rest of your life.

I'm not sure who decides what Burning Man is "meant" to translate, but if it does happen to bleed into the rest of your life I'm betting that's okay, too. Even things that are "all about the drugs" can have a way of incorporating other parts of your life. Besides, six hours away is far enough that if you crash and burn you won't have to run into this guy down at the Squishie-Mart.

Drugs and alcohol don't turn you into someone you weren't already.

Just as an aside, Frank Zappa famously said that amphetamines turn you into your parents. In my experience, this is true more often than it isn't.
posted by rhizome at 8:55 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I'd contact him, but I would FIRST have a long talk with yourself about the fact that you were in a situation that was different from your usual routine, and both of you had let your hair down and pushed the envelope. In essence, you were different people than you usually are in "ordinary life." As much as Burning Man may have felt like the real you, it wasn't -- it was a FACET of you, just like it was a FACET of him. When we meet people when we're on vacation, we are flaunting a FACET of ourselves that usually doesn't get to get out and play, and this facet is usually a little wilder, more carefree, spontaneous, adventuresome, etc. So it's very possible that your "vacation self" clicked with his, but the "default selves" may have nothing in common at all.

So you could very possibly meet again and find out that the only thing you have in common IS that week at Burning Man, and everything else about him makes you want to spit tacks.

If you can accept that there is that possibility -- that you could meet him in person again, and decide that "wait, on second thought, I was wrong about this" and be able to just let him go with a hearty "have a nice life" -- then, you're ready to try calling him. But I'd accept the possibility that that might happen first, so you don't set yourself up for possible disappointment.

This is not to say that you COULD also click in regular life too. But as long as you know both outcomes are possibilities and you're just seeing which one is there.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:57 AM on September 8, 2008

You have to trust that you know exactly what

sorry, "you have to trust that you'll know exactly what to do when the time comes."
posted by Ironmouth at 11:27 AM on September 8, 2008

I can't tell from the responses who has been to Burning Man and who hasn't, so forgive me if this response comes off as "knowier than thou," but here goes. Having been to BMan several times and been through a few intense playa jump-started relationships, platonic and otherwise, I can say it probably wasn't the drugs, but it probably was the playa. The event is engineered to break down defenses emotionally and physically, and most people find themselves opening up in ways they couldn't anticipate. I've shared things with people on the playa that I can barely admit to myself off-playa. Also, whenever I get back from BMan, I always go through a period of playa hangover, where all my emotional ups and downs seem a lot more intense.

All that said, it doesn't mean it can't work between you two. Most of my intensely started playa-relationships have evolved into great friendships even over long distances. A few haven't, but I could pretty much predict the ones that wouldn't. As the above have said, take it slow, and keep in mind that you'll still have to do the work of getting to know each other. It might feel like you've taken some steps backwards at first, but the guy you loved on the playa is still lurking around inside the guy on the other end of the phone.
posted by ga$money at 11:30 AM on September 8, 2008

This experience rings bells for me.

On the burn night of my first ever Burning Man, my then-partner and I climbed up into a giant mushroom within the Lush camp, which was built to look like a tropical paradise. The cap of the mushroom allowed a view over the playa and the opportunity to talk to lots of interesting people. (In retrospect the whole place was a potential deathtrap, but at the time it seemed utterly romantic.)

So it's our penultimate night after a week during which neither of us really "got" Burning Man. Suddenly, partly due to the solidarity of an intriguing group of people and partly thanks to the excellent ecstasy tablets that one of them gave us, everything made sense. Burning Man the experience happened for us at that moment.

We talked for an hour to a couple, one of whom was called Otis. He gave us a little music box that played the theme to "Love Story". It was a touching gift, some distance away from the tacky playa trinkets that most people tote around Black Rock City. Eventually we decided to climb down out of the mushroom and we went our separate ways.

The day after next we drove away, stopped overlooking a lake at one of the reservations and I cried at what felt like both a beautiful possibility and a wasted opportunity. Potential friends whose contact details we never took down. After coming home we looked them up on the Burning Man ePlaya board and even seven years later the name is still present in my head.

Nevertheless, as ga$money says above, you cannot equate playa friendship with the ratrace world. The combination of mindaltering substances and mindaltering environment means that nothing translates perfectly back home. I have felt that gnawing anticipation and excitement, wondering about the connections I made at Burning Man. I have a sense of what you might be going through. But be cautious: there's no guarantee you can replicate that experience once you're back in the relative mundanity of home.
posted by skylar at 12:37 PM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I say take a chance - you only live once, you know? Everyone here is being so damn rational.

Call him, book a hotel so you have your own space, drive over there and see if the spark is still there. It's near impossible to connect on the phone sometimes, so go see him in person.

What is the harm???

If you can accept that there is that possibility -- that you could meet him in person again, and decide that "wait, on second thought, I was wrong about this" and be able to just let him go with a hearty "have a nice life" -- then, you're ready to try calling him. But I'd accept the possibility that that might happen first, so you don't set yourself up for possible disappointment.

I'm sorry but this situation should not require so much damn thought! Who cares if you have to live with some disappointment! It's what makes life interesting. Take a chance.
posted by anthropoid at 1:00 PM on September 8, 2008

Who cares if you have to live with some disappointment! It's what makes life interesting. Take a chance.

on the other hand, life is no less interesting if you have intense but finite connections with people that are not taken any further, and you never see them again. in a way, you don't have to sully the thing with the dirt of the world. just sayin'.
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:56 PM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]