It's finally over. It was over TODAY. Naturally, I am numb.

We met, spoke for over an hour and he finally told me that his interest in me was 'purely academic', that he was sorry and surprised that he had ever given me a different impression and that all I was, had been a good student, 'one of his best'. But that was that.

So I'm sitting here, numb. I thought at some level, he felt SOMETHING but apparently - no. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Just 'academic interest'. I feel like someone has wrenched my heart out and stamped all over it. I am too numb to feel anything except this overwhelming desire to throw myself in front of a speeding car.

I cannot see past this rejection. I cannot really buy the idea that something or someone even better is out there. It is just him - I just can't let go of him and the idea that we should have gotten together

Does this pain ever really go away? How do you cope when a dream comes crashing down, even if was just a one-sided infatuation?

Help! I'm feeling so inclined to jump off a hill now.

If you're truly feeling suicidal, please call a professional at once.

That sucks, hon. It really does.

Yes, it does get better. Not overnight, but this too shall pass. It takes time, and experiences. One day, hopefully you will be able to look back on this situation and see him for the manipulative person he's been.

Is it possible to make an entirely clean break from him? That is the best, if you can make it so you never see or talk to him again. If you can't do that, it's going to be harder to get over him.

Do what you need to do to take special care of yourself. Sleep more if you need to, treat yourself extra well.

How old are you again, SugarFree? It seems to me you have been married once already--but I can't remember for sure. Please help refresh my memory.

Edit: Oh, OK, I looked up your earlier posts. You're early 30s and have been married and divorced.

Call a hotline if you are feeling suicidal--these are available almost anywhere. And let me just say, it would be an incredibly stupid thing to end your life over this. You have been around the block once or twice. I don't know what to make of your story--your reaction seems out of line somehow with your age and experience.

Go to your college counseling center and make an appointment to see someone! It's all confidential, but I think you need to talk this out face to face with a counselor or clergy. You can keep names out of it if you like. I hope you feel better...

Jay

I was in what was almost a 'fixed' marriage. My ex was a member of my previous church and I was clinically depressed when I met him. I was still living at home (ultra orthodox parents, stay-a-virgin-till-you-marry-a-fellow-church-goer subculture and going to school full time on a scholarship) and he offered me an escape route. He was basically my first and only and I married him for the wrong reason. So I don't really have any 'experience' (so to speak).

This guy - I felt instant attraction to him. I WANTED to get to know him. I WANTED to get together with him. I wasn't escaping anything, I WANTED to be there with and for him. That's the tragedy. At 33, I really am going through my first ever break up (not a real relationship, of course, but an overwhelming, all-powerful infatuation that almost bordered on love).

Rejection always hurts, and it's always amazing just how much it hurts. But the thing you have to consider now is would you really be better off with him? I don't think you would be. He seems to me to be an authority figure who enjoyed flaunting his power over you while you could, and pulled out when it stopped being fun. That is not someone to bank a future on, and it's certianly not someone worth your tears now! Now you're free to find someone with whom you can have a real, honest, equal relationship.

Sugar,

Nobody is worth harming yourself over. Nobody.

I know this is a cliche and it may not feel like it right now but it's also a very basic reality: this too shall pass. Think of other times in your life when it seemed a bad event or situation was overwhelming or always going to be there but eventually you moved on from it and gained a different perspective. It will happen this time, too. Give it time. You're still reeling from feeling rejected and disillusioned. Try to look at him and at the situation as they really are and not as you wanted them to be. Consider that maybe he was not the nicest or best person to be involved with and that maybe you got off easier now than you might have down the road. And please, please try to find ways (even if they seem trivial) to treat yourself better that will build your confidence. Think of it like exercise...you may not always want to do it or even believe that you can but you know it's a good thing for you in the long run. Seriously...you can eventually reach a point where you will look back on this time and say to yourself "what the heck was I thinking???" When I was in my 20s I had strong feelings for several years for a man who worked in the same company I did and we actually did date a few times. He wasn't a bad person and didn't hurt me or anything but I knew that relationship wasn't going to go anywhere and I finally reached a point where I just basically told myself to just let go of my feelings for the guy. It was a deliberate, conscious choice. Just let them go and move on, I said. And shortly after that I met someone else that I fell for, and even though that relationship didn't last either, it showed me that I could get over the previous guy and care about someone else. If I saw either of them today, I wouldn't have those same feelings towards them...different time, different perspective.

One other thing that I've learned over time is that, very often, how people (meaning people in your life, not strangers on the street) treat you or perceive you has a lot to do with how you feel about yourself and what you project. Don't look to other people to build up your self-esteem and to make you feel good about yourself. Try and make it happen for yourself and you may find that you will begin to attract more positive people into your life who won't make you feel bad about yourself or make you feel like a victim. It can happen!

Wow, thank you so much! I am encouraged by reading your post that you were able to get over someone just by telling yourself that you no longer wanted to have feelings for him.

I'm going to try that. Maybe it'll work for me. It has to work, doesn't it? I don't have any options with this guy anymore.

I can't say that there weren't still some twinges for a while after that when I would run into him. It was more a matter of telling myself to stop dwelling on him and to not keep him as an option, even in the back of my mind. I mean, there had even been other guys that had flirted with me, asked me out or that I was friends with that I didn't really consider seriously because I had my "eye on the prize", so to speak. When you have tunnel vision, you kind of miss or dismiss what's on the sidelines. But you know how people sometimes have to psych themselves up for something or talk themselves into it, like a job interview or a speech or something? How they tell themselves to just go ahead and do it and project confidence even if they don't really feel it? You know that the mind is a pretty powerful thing. It can tell us things or make us believe things that may not be the reality or it may make things seem worse than they are. It can also work for the positive. Tells us to go ahead and do something even if our hearts aren't in it just yet or we don't really believe it just yet. And when we do it, we often find later that our hearts caught up with our heads or we marvel that we really were stronger/smarter/braver than we thought we were. Another thing I started doing with this guy was considering the ways he wasn't right for me, like he was 13 years older than me, we didn't really have much in common, I hated his best friend, lol. It all involved a shift in perspective.
Life is a learning process. We can take lessons with us from most anything, even if the lesson is to not do the same thing again. Let this situation be a lesson for you for what you don't want in your life or how you don't want to be treated. Find ways now to make yourself feel better that don't involve food or the approval of another person. Don't tell yourself you don't deserve it or didn't do anything to earn it. You do and you did. You're not going to experience a full-fledged new attitude overnight...it's a lot like losing weight or learning a new skill. Start out small and over time you'll become better at it and see results.

First off...NO ONE..i repeat NO ONE is worth killing yourself over. He's not worth that. That being said...you need to get your self some professional help ASAP. Its not meant as a mean thing...its meant to help you. You sounds as if you are in a very dark place over this idiot of a professor!!!!!! It sounds like you need to speak to someone to get it all out. Please see someone. Most campuses at least have counsilor that you can see. Please get some help...you really sound as if you need it. I understand you had feelings for him..and it feels as if he was "the only true one for you"...but there are better ppl out there. People who don't play freaking mind games like he did with you. You need to start learining to love yourself first before. You deserve a wonderful person. So you need to start figuring you out before anything else. Good luck and please see someone.

In my past I, too, made some not-so-good choices. I would be convinced that this guy was the most important person to me. I don't even want to consider how many hundreds, if not thousands of hours I wasted thinking about him, daydreaming, all on or about him, him, HIM!!

Let me repeat a key phrase: I don't even want to consider how many hundreds, if not thousands of hours I wasted. From what you wrote, I can see reflections. You have spent countless hours thinking about him in many different ways. But none of it was productive for you. That's because it was based in fantasy, not in real life.

As hard as it is, you have to learn to put yourself first. The most important person in your life is not someone else, it is YOU. I'm not saying this in a selfish way, but in a survival way. One of the things I learned looking back on my own guy-oriented obsessive behavior was I wanted to give "him" the love and support he needed--but it was a substitute for myself. You come from such an overprotected background where you were never really allowed to spread your wings & make a few mistakes before you got married. Whatever problems should have been addressed, or needs you had that were never met, are coming to the fore now. I finally figured out that my wanting to do all kinds of things for "him" were really subtitutes for doing good things for me. I had to disguise it because I felt I didn't deserve it.

Maybe you're feeling similar things. Regardless, whatever your feelings are, they should be talked out with a counselor. Even if you no longer feel suicidal, you definitely need to sort out your head, learn you do deserve to be loved for who you are--by you. You know all those good things you wanted to do for him? Do them for yourself. You're the one who hungers for them.

Do follow trekkiegirl's advice--and the advice of all of us, suggesting you find professional counseling. You are deserving. Cry hard and stay brave! Come back and keep us posted!

FatToFitVirgo just reminded me of something else I wanted to say. Don't tell yourself that there is nobody out there right now that cares about you. You've got people posting right here on this thread that care. It doesn't matter that we've never met in person, we've shared some personal feelings and experiences with one another and that matters. There are things any of us can learn from anyone else, even if it's just the awareness that, wow, somebody else has gone though something like I have before or there are "strangers" who care enough to say something.

And consider something else. If you had a daughter, sister or best friend who was going through exactly what you are right now, what would you tell her? Wouldn't you care enough about her to want her to believe in herself and value herself? Then why devalue yourself? Be your own best friend, advocate and cheerleader first and foremost. Like I said, maybe you don't really believe it at first and have to make yourself do it or talk yourself into it, but you may find that, hey, that made me feel good or I really did that well, I want more! It sort of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You've got a strong mind. Use it to build yourself up, not knock yourself down.

Thanks, all.

Yes, it IS stupid to kill myself over someone. I ran into him this am and he wanted me to take his class in the Fall!

I will be honest with y'all. I am so tempted to take that class. First of all, because it's a difficult class and he is an amazingly good teacher and second of all, because I thought it would be good to take a 3 month Summer break and then see if I feel the same obsession about him then as I do now.

What do you ladies think? I really need you all to help me here. I'm too emotionally involved with him to think straight or think right.

Thanks again for the wisdom and the swift kick in the pants. I needed both desperately.

Personal opinion only, but I don't believe you should take the class unless a) you absolutely HAVE to have it, and b) nobody else teaches it. He's putting you back into a position where he has 'power' over you - if you take it, he's once again an authority figure, and he knows it.

Keep away from him and his influence. You may or may not be over the infatuation by then, but why make it more difficult for yourself?

I agree with BrandNewMe. If you have any option at all, do NOT take any class from this guy.

I agree with everyone else, too. Please seek help in real life. People care about you here, but we can only help so much.

If he led you on (and it sounds like he did), he is a first class creep. And now, to goad you into taking another class from him???

I bet he lives in his mother's basement and has yellow pointy toenails.

Repeat after me: Do not do it. Do NOT take his class.

I do not care HOW tempted you are. Three months will not be 'long enough', you will fall right back into old bad emotional habits, and you will be miserable.

Now the question that crosses my mind is: He wants you to take it??!! Do you have any girlfriends there who want to help you get away from this creep? Would they be willing to look up whether or not he's got some kind of "creep professor" rep? I don't recommend you do it, since that would just keep you obsessed--but if he's had to leave another college in the past because he was 'asked to leave'--you should know about it, and so should others.

In any case, thinking "you could handle" your emotional obsession, is as faulty as a drug addict thinking they "could handle" their crack cocaine or meth addiction.
IT CAN'T BE DONE!!