Experiencing an emotional crisis. Should I contact this girl?

May 9, 2009 2:03 AM

I need to get this off my chest. At the moment my emotional state is all out of whack. To the point that it is beginning to adversely affect my daily life. I cannot think as clearly as I used to since my mind is drifting. I keep experiencing daydream-like flashbacks of certain points in my childhood, all dealing with people I wish I was still around with. It's not like I completely stop whatever I'm doing and think about these things, but they are always in the back of my mind, like a subconscious memory that is stuck. Basically, I think memories of this one girl I knew way back when are bringing this on. Should I get in touch with her, despite the fact I now live thousands of miles away?

Backstory: what might have been the onset of this? When I was still in high school as a senior at 17, my parents decided to move. At the time, I was excited. Back where I used to live, there were admittedly no opportunities for me. Since moving, I have started college and started up my own business in the technology field with hosting websites. I also work as a independent journo in the video game industry (going to E3 next month). Anyway, going through with this move meant I never was able to experience the last few months with high school friends before moving on to secondary education. Honestly though, I didn't care at the time, as I was never really emotionally attached to my surroundings.

But now, three years later, I'm feeling regrets, despite everything else in my life being on the up. At the core of it all is this girl I knew awhile back. I never knew her that well, guess you could say we were only casual friends. She was very carefree and had a super likable personality. I did sense a connection that I never had felt before between us but well, I never made a move. It's not exactly that I was shy or anything, just that getting a girlfriend back then was not top on my list of priorities. So yeah, I reckon I let the chance pass me by. Although I cannot say for certain if she really liked me or not, it sure feels like I blew it anyway.

So now, I am wondering if I should contact her again, just to chat as friends? Maybe just talking to her would fill this void in my life and stop the recurring memories. I really don't know. I'm only hesitant as I am short on words. By that I mean I have no idea what to say to her. And plus, having someone contacting you out of the blue that you only knew casually after three years seems sort of awkward.

I suppose... I may be experiencing these feelings as I'm at an age where I still can do something about it. Possibly, anyway. It's safe to say that wanting to get back to together with someone 10-20 years after the fact is not going to happen in most cases. In my case though it has been only three years. So perhaps that "chance," however minute it may be, is bringing this all on.

posted by dadaluma to human relations (26 comments total)

I think you are feeling a lot about this girl in the past, but I think it is more about you wanting to relate to the past than it was about this particular person.
posted by bengalibelle at 2:40 AM on May 9

it is beginning to adversely affect my daily life

This is a key point here. Can you elaborate on how it is adversely affecting your current life?
posted by so_gracefully at 2:51 AM on May 9

I am going to hazard a guess that, at least in part, you never dealt with the feelings of loss that could have been generated by such a move close to an important "right of passage". This is not to discount your excitement over your move, but in a way you seem like you could be grieving for the part of your life you missed out on and this girl is a symbol of those missed opportunities and experiences.

Hope you feel better.
posted by sundri at 2:56 AM on May 9 [1 favorite]

Do you have any reason to visit, like having family in the area, where you could drop her a note and say you were going to be in town and would she like to have a drink?

If not, I think you could just email her or whatever and say, I've been thinking a lot about place X, I thought I'd drop you a line and say Hi. So, Hi--How are things?

She'll either not respond, respond lightly, or respond with a lot of details about her life, and that will tell you how to proceed. Don't fade away into the distance if she says she has a boyfriend, just be her friend. At twenty three or whatever he might be gone next month, and even if she likes you she might feel obligated to drop that in right away.

Something light and short, nothing too 'I'm worried you might be my long lost soul-mate' and feel it out.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 4:19 AM on May 9

If you elect to make a contact with this girl, please do it with the knowledge that she is three years past that point as well, has moved on, and unlikely to be sharing your passion. It is likely that she will find your contact a bit odd and react as such. If you can handle this, there's no reason not to contact her, it this would be a problem for you, you might best find a therapist to help you let go of this and redirect your energy to the here and now.

I would suggest the latter.
posted by HuronBob at 4:22 AM on May 9

Go ahead and contact her. Be prepared for the "And who are you again?". I was about the same, at least the graduating early, leaving town for the opposite coast and rarely coming back to visit, then I just stopped going back home for 15 years or so. Being geeky IT type, I've looked up some people sometimes, got the "why are you talking to me?" treatment mostly. 15-20 years later... Old droog #1 doesn't FB or anything like that, he's running for City Council. Old droog #2 that I stole a GF from who hated me the entire senior year doesn't remember a thing, he's in Cambodia in the Peace Corps. The girl i stole from him, chat with all the time when she's not in the hospital (married, kid, jealous husband). Chat with my first HS date ever, and her older sister (my prom date). The other girl that I secretly had a crush on (sat behind her in church as often as I could)... talk to her almost every day. After 24 years, my friend from HS swim team is in a relationship with my sister.

You'll get mixed results contacting people out of nowhere, but the ones that don't freak are worth the ones that do. Be prepared, your girl might be married with a 2yr old in her lap.
posted by zengargoyle at 4:38 AM on May 9

I would find it extremely unlikely that she would want to get back together with you, seeing as you two weren't together in the first place! Of course, it never hurts to drop her an email or find her on Facebook, but honestly if you are coming to her with romance as your #1 priority, you will likely scare her away. If you come with friendly intentions, you might be able to restart the friendship, but if you think you are in love or like with her (which it sounds like you are), she will eventually notice this and things will likely become awkward.

I think if you live a more active life now, you will loosen your grip on your memories of the past and they'll stop coming back to haunt you as they are now. Go make new friends, find a new woman you're interested in. And therapy always helps too.
posted by Meagan at 4:41 AM on May 9

Maybe just talking to her would fill this void in my life and stop the recurring memories.

The problem is, she is more than a tool for you to fill your own void. If you were to meet up with her, you would be ascribing more meaning to the event than she would, using her as a lifeline of sorts, and that'll come out in various subtle ways and will cause either her to shy away from your overwhelmingness or cause you to go to great lengths to hide your emotional involvement in the meeting[s], which will hurt you.

Before meeting her you need to be in a place where she is simply a person who you knew and were reasonably friendly with, and not a stand-in for all that you lost in your move. Otherwise you put too much of a burden on her, whether she knows it or not.

I speak from great and hindsight-regrettable experience.
posted by Lemurrhea at 5:08 AM on May 9 [9 favorites]

Your issue is not this girl. I do not know what your issue really is, but she ain't it.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 5:20 AM on May 9 [3 favorites]

It doesn't sound to me like your emotional state is "out of whack", as you say. It feels out of whack to you, of course, but I'd like to posit that you are perhaps feeling perfectly normal feelings that you've just never experienced before.

You went through an emotional upheaval three years ago when your folks moved you during your last year of high school. You're in college, you've started a business and you're freelancing, as well. That's an incredible work load, and it's entirely possible that with all that work and your stated excitement over moving to a new place, you just never dealt with your real feelings about the move. If you were here saying something along the lines of, "The toaster tells me to start fires.", I'd be worried about you. This question? It doesn't worry me. But I'm not a doctor or a social worker, so if you're worried about your mental health and find no reassurance here, by all means have a physical and make an appointment to talk with somebody.

Now. This girl. I'd say if you find her on Facebook or some other social networking site, fine. Send her a friend request, but leave it at that. As others have noted, she's just a tangible object for you to focus all of these confusing feelings on, and she will be as or more confused than you are right now if you show up out of the blue and drop all of this at her doorstep. Don't do that. Your feelings are your own, they're perfectly normal and, with due respect, you're very, very young - intense feelings will become less of a mystery to you as you get older and get more practice at allowing them to exist, examining them, and making peace with them gradually over time, without needing to take some huge action to make them go away.
posted by TryTheTilapia at 6:24 AM on May 9 [1 favorite]

Sounds to my untrained ear that you may have some OCD issues to deal with. Forget about the girl. It's maybe time to see a shrink.

Good luck.
posted by DieHipsterDie at 6:28 AM on May 9

I would take the recurrent memories of this person as symbolic. Some part of you is crying out, not for this specific person, but for someone to matter to. You need people to talk to, people who care about you, people to whom you are useful. Do you have people like this in your life.

Forget about this girl. You're just remembering the feeling of someone smiling and talking with you and acting like she cared. If she nearby and you saw her all the time she might be a nice addition to your life. But she's not in your life and she won't be. Forget about her and start to process your loneliness. Just begin to really feel it. You are almost certainly very lonely. We've all been there.

Feel it today. Then, tomorrow or this afternoon, start thinking of ways to remediate this loneliness in your present life, nearby. Then act on those ways.
posted by argybarg at 6:34 AM on May 9 [4 favorites]

She's not the girl you're daydreaming about. The girl you're daydreaming about is just that: a daydream. You're idealizing some memories of a girl you knew in high school. You're not in high school anymore, and neither is she: you've both changed a lot since then.

There are lots of girls who live where you do right now and who you'd have a lot more in common with than someone you never knew that well in the first place who lives thousands of miles away -- plus, as a bonus, no awkward creepy factor to deal with.
posted by ook at 6:47 AM on May 9

What do you have to lose? If it turns out badly, you'll probably won't see her again. There are virtually no really bad outcomes here.

I would recommend trying to avoid approaching this as a "destiny" sort of thing - keep it casual, since it's fairly likely she does not feel the same way, and anything intense at first is likely to weird her out. But heck - why not give her a call/e-mail?
posted by Salvor Hardin at 6:58 AM on May 9 [1 favorite]

You are, I hazard, either my age or a year younger. I am in the last two years of a five-year degree.

Want to know what I did almost immediately after graduating? I cut all ties to my previous life and am now very happy as an adult. Your mileage may vary.

Stop focusing on the memories. Let them fade and focus on something else as soon as they crop up. They are thoughts and nothing more, and you have a choice whether to act on them or to not act on them. Unless you're in a position to pursue this as you would a relationship with a person you'd meet as an adult (though I suppose you know the woman), don't do it.

Are you stressed? Are you feeling malaise about life in general or some aspect of it? Do some thinking about this; get some space to yourself where you can be aware of what's in your brain.
posted by kldickson at 7:46 AM on May 9 [2 favorites]

Everything you need to know is right there before the fold:

At the moment my emotional state is all out of whack.

and

Should I get in touch with her, despite the fact I now live thousands of miles away?

Distance isn't the problem. Your befuddled mental state is.

Who wants to talk to someone from their past when that person is having a mental breakdown / crisis / whatever? That's not attractive.

Get yourself together, spend a few weeks staying on top of your game, then call her up. You'll sound confident, secure, and stable - basically everything you're not right now.
posted by wfrgms at 8:20 AM on May 9 [1 favorite]

If nothing brought this up you likely are concerned about something else and are distracting yourself from thinking about the problem. Are there any other issues, work-related or otherwise that you might want to be keeping out of your mind? If so focus on that issue directly and you will feel worse for a short while then better.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:25 AM on May 9

Please, please don't approach someone who hasn't heard from you (or maybe even thought of you at all) in three years expecting her--directly or indirectly--to provide you with some sort of emotional resolution.
posted by availablelight at 9:12 AM on May 9 [3 favorites]

Building on what Lemurrhea said, it's unfair to this girl to contact her right now. The role of a girlfriend/partner is not to fill a void, but is to complement and enrich the (ideally stable) life you already lead. If you contact her right now, it's because you're feeling shitty - it's really not because you are interested in her.

Take a few months to maybe see a counselor and work out what's at the root of your emotional state right now, and then see if you still want to contact her.

No person can fill an emotional void like this - it has to come from you. Which is way harder than simply finding someone to make you feel better. It won't work in the long run though. Take the more difficult path of figuring out what's going on in your head instead of 'filling the void.' You'll be glad you did.
posted by anthropoid at 9:17 AM on May 9 [1 favorite]

I don't think you should contact her expecting to tie up loose ends with your relationship, but if you thought she was cool and just want to say hi, hit her up on Facebook or MySpace. Random people from my school days contact me on there all the time, and I do the same to others, and nobody thinks it's weird.
posted by ishotjr at 9:57 AM on May 9

I came back to comment because I realize I was focusing a bit too much on the negative side. But it's pretty well covered by what Trythetilapia said: although I think it's not a good thing to do for the reasons I stated earlier, don't take my earlier statement as criticism / contempt / anything like that. It's very understandable, definitely not uncommon, and just one of those things that I personally keep an eye out to make sure I'm not doing, if that makes sense.
posted by Lemurrhea at 11:06 AM on May 9

I have a similar obsessive tendency. It has focused on various things/people over the years. Intentionally focusing away from the obsessive thought helps (when it comes up, force yourself to think about something else - something interesting to you). What really works is to demystify the object of the obsession.

So I recommend a two-pronged approach. First, really discipline yourself to move away from these daydreams. If you are anything like me, it will be tough. There is a big emotional payoff for indulging in these - so you really have to make an effort to redirect.

Second, send her a friend request on facebook. Then sit back for a while and read the updates, quizzes, etc. about her that come up on your wall. It will give you a chance to see who she is now, and whether she is really someone you would want to spend time with (this is the demystification part). It is also a really low-risk (for everyone) way to indulge a little bit in the obsession. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you can provide it a compartment in your life, I find it makes it easier to put it aside the rest of the time.

What if she seems really cool? Facebook provides a lot of ways to connect with people in a non-threatening way. Comment on her updates - see if a dialog gets going. Let it evolve naturally and really focus on seeing her for who she is, not who you are daydreaming she is.

Whatever you do, don't get stressed out thinking that something is wrong with you. Some people are just like this, and everybody has their issues. If everybody waited until their issues were resolved to date, then no one would ever date. One thing that has intrigued and helped me understand and come to terms with this side of my personality is the enneagram. I am a 4 personality type, and this kind of daydreaming is common in 4s.
posted by jeoc at 12:58 PM on May 9 [1 favorite]

I think both Sundri and Argybarg are right about the root of your "emotional crisis." You're lonely and unlike some or most people who have a feeling of "home" to turn to in their lonely times, you're missing that. You don't know where to turn because you don't feel you belong anywhere. Based on inference from your post, you sound like someone who operates mostly independent of others. You didn't really care when you left your high school in the last year, you've started your own business, and you're a freelance journalist. So I think at your core you thrive alone. However, as you grow older and are approacthing yet another pinnacle in your life (college graduation I surmise), you realize "you" are not enough, you need others, you yearn to belong. You were emotionally detached before but as you look out at the horizon of your life, at that abyss called adulthood, you realize you don't want to face that new phase alone. Perfectly okay.

I think the Facebook and Myspace suggestions are really good. I think that'd go a long way in filling that "home" void, at least you would feel like you are a part of something bigger than yourself. I normally hate when people just throw out the kneejerk "seek therapy" to EVERY problem, but in this case, I don't think it's a bad idea. I think talking to someone and getting better aquanited with your emotions to which you have been detached for so long would be very helpful. And it would help you gain some perspective on how to compartamentalize this new [emotionally tricky] phase of your life so that you can better concentrate and won't feel so overwhelmed and distracted in your daily life.

Beyond that, exercise, drinking water, eating nuts and fruit and vegetables like spinach and carrots are all things that will help you better concentrate.

Good luck to you!
posted by GeniPalm at 4:24 PM on May 9

I often used to get pointless crushes when there was something else I didn't want to deal with. Having romantic fantasies about someone gave me an emotional outlet that enabled me not to look at the stuff I didn't want to think about.

This may not be you. But it might be.
posted by Sidhedevil at 6:40 PM on May 9

Appreciate the responses everyone, they have helped me look at this situation in a different light. As many have pointed out, waiting this out and getting my head together before deciding on whether to contact her or not seems like a good idea. If I do, going the Facebook route initially is likely what I'd do. I still have her cell number and AIM but contacting her via either of those puts me, as well as her, on the spot.

And I realize I cannot expect her to feel the same way I do. It's unrealistic, of course. I'm prepared for the fact that she may not want to have anything to do with me now. It has been three years yes but I'm certain she remembers me. She did wish me a happy birthday about a year after I moved actually, that was the last I talked to her.

I agree, though, I do need to get rid of the thoughts that she could fill the void in my life. That's also unrealistic. I don't want to dump my feelings on her -- that's not my personality. I just never have felt this way about anyone before.

Also for everyone that alluded to something else at play being the problem, you may be right. I don't "feel" stressed but I do overwork myself without realizing it at times. I'm that guy who is usually up working late and people tell me to catch some sleep. I suppose the main issue is that - yes - I am lonely. Not lonely in the sense that I have no friends, but just that I have no one to confide in. Also one of my closer friends who is in the Air Force got married recently (with someone we went to high school with no less), so maybe that inadvertently got me thinking about contacting someone who I really liked in the past.

A part of me does want to put the past behind and just move on. But at the same time, I don't want to be looking back at this 10 years from now and saying "what if" or "wish I would've." Hence why I'm seriously thinking this through now.

@so_gracefully: By adversely affecting my life I mean that these things have been on my mind more the usual lately. In hindsight that statement was a bit over the top: I mean, I can deal with this, it isn't affecting work or my performance at school for that matter. To elaborate, it's a nagging thought that has been occupying my brain waves lately. More often than I would like, as I sometimes think about it even when I'm trying to concentrate on other things.

Again, thanks for the responses all.
posted by dadaluma at 1:00 AM on May 11

The desire for closure is natural. See if she has a facebook/myspace account and drop her a quick line sometime, as mentioned previously. Don't freak out if she doesn't remember you. Don't immediately go into the "I can't stop thinking about you." That Will freak Her out. Go from there.

In a few months or years, if you find your friendship reigniting, you might be able to ask her about what (didn't) happen three years ago...something like, "i can't believe i'm telling you this, but i always kinda had a crush on you, did you know that?" or "you know, I always thought about asking you out, i just never had the nerve; did you ever think of me that way?" maybe something more subtle and nostalgic to bring you into that conversation. Then proceed from there.
posted by mynameismandab at 2:20 AM on May 17