"You look at me and, babe, I wanna catch on fire..."

**Spoiler Warning** There are mild spoilers for A Star is Born in this entry. 

There is a man on OKC that has been assertive about wanting to meet me. There is nothing wrong with him, but I am not interested. Our match score is only 81%, so I have no idea why he is pursuing me. I just know that nothing about his profile or our brief exchange of messages that is intriguing enough to invest my time.

I politely told him that I am overbooked and that I am recovering from a nasty break up. He didn’t get the clue. He asked about meeting sometime in the next week. It is nice to feel wanted, but my sixth sense tells me that this guy is not worth it.

How come I am not feeling wanted?

It’s absolutely stupid that I feel that way; I am not hurting for attention. I have had to turn people away, and Mr. 81% is the least of my options. I have been wondering what I feel is lacking and taking a hard look at what I am missing and whether or not it's a healthy to want it.

I miss feeling like the center of somoene's world. 

One friend of mine calls it “love bombing”.  That is as good of a phrase as any other.  Keto and Rope Guy had lives before they came into my life. I am very happy that they continue in their pursuits. Neither of them are spending all of their attention on me and I know that it’s a good thing. My husband is the same way. However, getting the sort of attention that one gets while being love bombed is intoxicating. I miss it.

That sort of love bombing suggests a larger problem with mental health and that's where the problem lies. A different friend told me that the way to tell if you are involved with someone who has Borderline Personality Disorder is how they make you feel. Either you feel like the most important person in their life or you are shit and worthless. There is nothing in between.

I saw A Star is Born last night and it got me thinking about intense relationships. Yes, I want intensity, I just don't want the consequences. I think I've been dealing with nothing but consequences for the past couple of years. Nothing like in the movie, but sometimes seeing something taken to an extreme helps put things in perspective.

As a psychology teacher, I run the risk of analyzing everyone I interact with. I know that my knowledge is limited and that I am not qualified to diagnose anyone. However, when my friend said that about people with BPD, I clicked onto the idea that this is one time where I can diagnose how I feel and do so with confidence. I can trace a number of my relationships with the same pattern as described as in the article.

I won't lie, the most recent is DA.  However, I am drawn into intense relationships and I think I could pin BPD on a few of my exes.

1. Excessive Mood Swings - Check
2. Excessive Behavior - Check
3. Quick to Feel Abandoned - Check
4. Intense Absolutes - Check

I think the part that resonated the most was the journey from "how you are the only one who understands them" to "all of their pain and suffering will be blamed on you".  

I haven't spoke to DA in over a month. Any time I am tempted, I just ask myself when the last time I was blamed for all of our relationship problems. The answer is always the same: the last time we talked. Amazingly, if I don't talk to DA, I don't have to hear that narrative.

There is a part of me that wishes that DA were still able to read my journal. I want to tell him that the reason I have to exit his life is because I think he is challenged by BPD. I feel that's why his life has been a series of intense relationships that crash and burn. I believe it so much that I am starting to feel actual sympathy for his current girlfriend.

Her fiancee had left her just a few weeks before she met DA. I can understand how alluring the sort of attention that DA was able to offer could have been, especially if she was vulnerable. Perhaps she will be the exception, but I have the feeling that she will find herself blamed for everything that's wrong in his life. The reason I feel sorry for her is because it seems like she made DA the center of her life.

I might have been the center of DA's life for a while, but he was never the center of mine. I had other relationships and activities  that I tried to maintain, in spite of our relationship. I am grateful that my life was waiting for me when I gave it my full attention again. I am very lucky.

I know DA and his current girlfriend are not my responsibility. But I think it says something that I feel sorry for his current girlfriend. Probably it says that I still think about DA too much. I know that if I was going to tell DA that I think he is someone with Borderline Personality Disorder, I would want to tell him in person. However, that means I have to contact him and quite frankly, life is so much better without his intensity sucking up my bandwidth.

But that doesn't mean I don't miss it. That's something that seeing my ex (see previous entry) and his wife last week made me face. It's like procrastinating. I hate that I do it, but man do I thrive when the deadline is looming. A relationship doesn't feel real if there isn't an absurd level intensity.

Obviously I am capable of non-intense relationships. My husband is many things, but I don't know anyone who would call him emotionally intense. I know that life without the intensity is better. I am better off if I don't procrastinate. But bad habits are hard to break.

So, today's song is from A Star is Born, because while I really liked the movie and the music was beautiful, I could see how much their relationship cost the characters.

Today's Song - Always Remember Us This Way by Lady Gaga