Infatuation vs obsession


When is the Love of a Character Too Much –

rjpt

Within Hannah Schmidt’s article, A Magically Nice Guy: Parasocial Relationships with Harry Potter Across Different Cultures, the idea of parasocial relationships are discussed. Parasocial relationships are defined as a one sided relationship in which one party doesn’t know that the other person exists. This is seen mainly in your every day person becoming infatuated with a fictional character, or a famous person. These relationships can be healthy in helping a person to lead a better life, but they can also turn into an unhealthy obsession. This leads us to ask at what point we draw the line between infatuation and obsession.

First we must understand the ways in which a person displays an infatuation with an their parasocial partner. An infatuation, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary is, “an intense but short-lived passion or admiration for someone or something. ” The parasocial relationship is often one that will last for a short amount of time, but may be intense enough to seem like it is an obsession. We see this often with younger people as they try to find their way in the world and reproduce admirable characteristics of what they see in movies or books. In her article Schmidt explains, “Media characters – and we argue that this is especially true for Harry Potter – often display special and highly attractive characteristics which the media users either strongly admire and/or are longing to acquire themselves” (5). This triggers the infatuation where they try to mimic the characteristics of the characters they admire.

This short-term admiration and imitation can be beneficial to the imitator in that it can help them transform themselves into a better person. They pick up on the abilities and characteristics of those they are infatuated with, and since this is mainly the hero, are changed in a small amount for the better. Once they grow out of the infatuation they see the positive impact of their changed behavior (be it that they were braver, kinder, etc. ) and continue to act in this manner, but as themselves rather than the character.

Obsession, on the other hand, is a more prolonged form of intensified infatuation. The Oxford English Dictionary as, “an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person’s mind” defines obsession. Unlike infatuation in which the infatuated person strives to be more like someone, an obsessed person spends all their time thinking about this one person. (insert quote about why a person may be super attracted to character) This link they feel they have to the fictitious character leads them to begin to spend all of their time trying to either become or come in contact with this character.

This quickly becomes unhealthy in that they neglect other responsibilities and personal engagements to become or meet their “hero”. Some may even start having the delusion that they actually have a relationship with the other have of their PSR. This can lead them to do illegal things such as kidnapping or stalking in order to maintain the relationship they believe they have or begin the relationship they want.

To tell the difference between the two one only has to look at the duration and intensity of the PSR and see how it affects their lives. If the changes are short-term and positive, and the intensity remains at a controllable level, you are probably seeing an infatuation. If the PSR is a long-term intense relationship that takes up all of an individual’s time and thought, you are seeing an obsession.

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  • Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Love vs.

infatuation: 10 telltale signs

Musical ballads, romcom films, epic poetry and glossy magazines; the whole world seems to be talking about love. Whether it is falling head over heels or out of love, pining for an absent or unrequited love, declaring your affection or breaking up, we have fallen in love with love. It is no surprise then that it is so easy to lose your emotional anchor and get carried away with strong feelings, cast adrift on a love boat that is battling the choppy waters of infatuation.

What is love?

Love is…if only it were easy to define in one short, smart sentence! But it is an indescribable element that has an enormous emotional pull. Love is a feeling; an expression; an action and an unknown. While being in love is usually about a sexual feeling too, love comes in many guises. A loving relationship is one where there is respect, kindness and a feeling of togetherness that allows each of you to express yourselves and be yourselves; love is not restrictive or smothering.

What is infatuation?

Obsession, addictive love, or lust- infatuation can knock you off your feet in much the same way as falling in love. However, feelings are often distorted by lack of perception, illogical thoughts and a focus on yourself rather than the feelings of the person who is the object of your affection. With an unhealthy infatuation comes an immaturity of expression and an attachment that reveals issues going on in your life rather than a display of healthy love. Your feelings can seem as if they are taking over your life, and in many cases these are disproportionately centered on carnal pleasures.

Why is it sometimes hard to tell the difference?

Love and infatuation are both incredibly strong emotions, and with these experiences it can feel like you have suddenly lost your head and your bearings. A loving relationship can change your life by helping you develop as an individual within its positive embrace. Infatuation can also change your life, often bringing up unresolved issues from the past and leaving you grappling to get a firm foothold on who you are and where you are going. In this instance, infatuation is a distraction from having to deal with problems and realities in your own life.

Am I in love or infatuated?

In the tangled web of emotions it can be difficult to gain an objective stance on what your feelings and relationship are about. Our quick questionnaire can help you achieve a clearer perspective:
Are you in love with the idea of being in love? If you are a serial monogamist or fall in love easily, then is each relationship based on real love or a deep down need to experience love and be loved? Infatuation can mask real emotional needs in the name of a feeling that is not based on a grounded relationship or reality.

  • Are your feelings sustainable? Have you lost yourself to ‘love’? If you are not able to eat, sleep or stop thinking about someone else, you need to ask yourself if this is a tenable situation or if are losing a sense of your own self. Infatuation is less of a deep connection with another person and more about an immediate need in yourself, hence the sense of urgency which is mistaken for love.
  • Do you focus on physical passion only? Sex with love is a great combo and can take physical pleasures onto a totally different level. Burning passion and immense sexual attraction are not mutually exclusive to love. However, if the main element of your intensity is a sexual, lustful feeling then this is likely more of a short-lived infatuation rather than a lengthy relationship that is going to last.
  • Are your feelings obsessive or possessive? Love is about support and believing in trust and togetherness. Infatuation can create uncertainty whereby you cling to your feelings and the object of these intense emotions. This leads to jealousy, which is not to be mistaken for depth-of-feeling, as well as a sense of wanting to control the relationship.
  • Are your feelings reciprocated? There is no rule to state that if your feelings are not mirrored then you are simply infatuated. However, it is worth exploring how you are reacting to what must feel like a rejection if they are not. If this is the case, are you accepting and respecting of your love interest’s feelings or in some kind of denial? Finding excuses for the lack of reciprocated affection that do not exist in reality is only going to invite misery into your life.
  • Have you neglected other areas of your life in the name of love? Every relationship can bring positive and negative influences into your life. The key difference between love and a loving relationship and feelings of infatuation is that the latter takes over your existence in an unhealthy way. How has a relationship affected the balance in your life?
  • How do your strong feelings make you feel about yourself? When you are in a relationship based on love, the overriding feeling can be one of being at ‘home’, in a safe and comfortable zone where you feel good about yourself. Infatuations tend to bring about incredible highs that cannot be sustained, followed by crashing lows, and feelings of insecurity and instability.
  • Do you focus on how someone makes YOU feel? Relationships based on ‘me’ rather than ‘we’ are inherently unhealthy and can be a warning sign that you are infatuated rather than in love. If it is all about how the actions of another person make you feel then you are not looking at the wider, more loving scenario of how you can both benefit in an honest and mutually loving way.

Intense feelings can leave us feeling vulnerable and exposed; add onto this an unhealthy infatuation and we can become faced with a multitude of challenges and life issues which we need to work out in order to move on. Identifying the difference between love and infatuation can be a good start in sorting out your emotions and inspiring a sense of self-realization. This may be the first step in releasing your feelings or relationship from the throes of infatuation to the peace and calm of love.

5 threats that hobbies bring into your life

Everyone needs hobbies: they develop, add confidence, help to unload psychologically. However, sometimes a hobby can turn into an obsession, and then it will begin to pose a real threat to your life. The problem is that we are talking about your favorite pastime, and it is very difficult to understand how it can become your enemy. We have already told you how to choose a male hobby and what hobbies will help you earn money.
It's time to talk about how passion can destroy you.

Hobby kills

At first it is always just a pleasant pastime, nothing more. You suddenly decide to go in for sports and go to the gym. As the body takes shape, there comes a desire not just to lose weight or become fit - you want to swing further and further.

Friends admire the dramatic changes in your appearance. Gradually, you notice puzzled looks, they can even be considered envy. In fact, people fear for your health, looking at the growing mountain of muscles.

The line between strong desire and obsession is almost impossible to notice on your own. This usually happens when the hobby is already life threatening. The first serious injury or illness - and you realize that you spent a lot of time and effort on self-destruction.

Destroys perspectives

Sometimes your painful attachment to what was once just an opportunity to kill time becomes a way of escaping reality. As long as there are many small things to do, you don't need to think about your life. Before going to bed, you may suddenly realize how tired you are from an unloved job, or how lonely you are in marriage, and in the morning the flow of everyday life will distract you from solving pressing problems.

A hobby does not always open up new horizons and develop a personality. Sometimes they make a person limited, withdrawn and deprive him of any life prospects.

Perhaps you started to get involved in something in the years of school or student, when you were free enough. With age, the circle of obligations grows and you begin to spend time on hobbies that you don’t have.

Destroys your relationship

Too much passion can overshadow relationships with loved ones or a girlfriend. It is unlikely that you will directly admit that you value the game of the computer more than her. A passionate desire to do something puts you in another reality where you cannot soberly assess the situation.

Sometimes a hobby becomes life itself for a person, and not part of it. Anyone who does not share your mania automatically turns into enemies. A good example of this is the story of an American football fan who divorced his wife because she washed his favorite T-shirt with a collection of autographs.

Another US woman preferred her love of collecting dolls to her relationship with her husband. The house was literally overflowing with toys, moreover, most of the time their mistress spent combing the doll's hair. When the husband could not stand this madness and left, the woman decided that since he could not love her “children”, then this was his problem. In any case, toys would never betray, she reasoned.

Will make you a beggar

Some activities not only take a lot of time, but also lead to serious financial expenses. We agree that money alone does not bring happiness - it all depends on how you use it. But it's one thing to be a millionaire and spend part of your fortune on a collection of old coins, it's another thing to be an average citizen and give everything you have to entertainment. Make sure your hobby doesn't turn you into a beggar.

Makes you feel inferior

Passionate desire to achieve success in your favorite business creates a lot of complexes in you. A hobby can turn into a neurosis, then you can no longer control it, you spend more and more time and effort on it and are still dissatisfied with the result. At some point, you completely forget that you started doing this just for fun. Remember, even the most interesting hobby is not worth spending your whole life on it.

Other related articles:

for life

Chapter 27 Infatuations and obsessions. Cristiano Ronaldo. Obsessed with Perfection

Chapter 27

Interests and obsessions

Passionate hobbies to Cristiano

Football

table tennis

Light athletics

tennis

Music

Cars

004

Exercises for strengthening the abdominal muscles

Its eyebrows

His hairstyle

His struggle aimed at the ban on smoking

His diet

The height of the lawn has in the garden

His personal life

Number 7

Football

Goals

Trophies

Messi

Ballon d'Or

Being the best

Excellence

Passions

0050

Try typing “Cristiano Ronaldo” in Latin and the Spanish “pasiones” (“passionate passions”) in the search box, and the most frequently requested phrase will be “Cristiano Ronaldo levanta pasiones”, which can be roughly translated as “Cristiano Ronaldo kindles passion” . This may refer to fans in Madrid, Portugal, England, Washington or Asia, to the female population of the planet, boys who dream of becoming football players, or the gay community (in 2009 magazine Gay Times called him the sexiest man in the world) - it seems that Ronaldo causes a storm of emotions everywhere.

Wherever he appears - be it a stadium, an airport, a clothing store or a restaurant - he causes a strong reaction from the public. They idealize him, they go crazy over him, they envy him, they love him or hate him. For some, he is a hero, for others, a villain. For some, he embodies modern football, others simply consider him a good player. For some he is a god, for others he is a devil. Since he set foot on English soil, few people remain indifferent to him. There are those who admire his blunt directness, and there are those who think that he is simply arrogant.

But what is passion for a man who kindles such passion in others? The usual things that attract rich, famous and attractive football players: designer clothes, accessories, fast sports cars. His most recent acquisition is a Ferrari 599 GTO – custom-built to resemble the Batmobile – that sprints from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.35 seconds thanks to its V12 engine. Before that he had Mercedes, Porsche 911, Bugatti Veyron, Bently Continental GT, Aston Martin DB9, and most recently the Maserati GranCabrio. Then came the turn of the Ferrari with a 6-liter engine and 612 horsepower under the hood. On January 8, 2009, a Portuguese man crashed his car into a fence in a tunnel at Manchester Airport. It was a terrible disaster, but the player remained safe and sound.

Most soccer players love their cars as much as they love the sport. But Cristiano has table tennis in second place after football. He started playing ping-pong in Madeira, where the sport is traditional and the island's clubs compete internationally. He continued to play table tennis when he moved to Sporting and plays now. He enjoys attending matches as well as playing with teammates and friends.

He considers himself a good player and says that the coach of the Sporting ping-pong team wanted him to play for the club. But… he wanted to be a footballer. His other sports hobbies include tennis (there is even a court at his mansion in England), athletics and swimming (where he stays, there must be a pool).

Music

My darling, you are the one I love until the end of time.

My divine passion.

You give me reason to live.

My darling, my life is empty without you.

I want to feel you near me, your eyes gazing into mine, my love.

My darling one.”

Yes, Ronaldo tried his hand as a romantic ballad singer in an advertisement for Banco Esp?rito Santo. The clip plays up the rumors surrounding the Real Madrid star: female bodyguards, a twin who swaps places with him from time to time, and a hint that he has always dreamed of recording a Spanish song. “Singing is not my strong point,” he admits in an interview Real Madrid Television.

But he sings not only in commercials. He sings in the dressing room, and Pepe, Marcelo and even Casillas join him. “All players love music. We listen to music during training, on the move before matches… Music is a part of my life. I grew up in a musical environment: my sister was a singer, and when I lived in Madeira, we often went to traditional music concerts. I don't have a favorite genre, it all depends on the day, who I'm with and other factors," he explains. Before a match, he prefers to listen to rhythmic music, and after a goal, he dances with Marcelo to songs like Ai se eu te pego Brazilian Michel Body.

Family

Call it passion, love, filial or brotherly devotion - the most important thing in the life of a boy who had to leave his family at the age of 12 is his family: his mother Doloresh, his sisters, his brother, his son-in-law, nephews and nieces (Rodrigo, Dinis, Beatrice and Eleanor) and his cousin Nuno. His "clan" also includes his agent Jorge Mendes. He always said that he was devoted to the family, that his mother had been a wall for him all his life, that there was a special relationship between them, that she spoiled him when he was a child, and that he would never leave her. He also emphasizes how much his father supported him, explaining that they could always rely on each other.

After signing for Manchester United, he asked his mother to retire. He bought her a new home and took care of her when she was sick. And although he failed to help his father cope with alcoholism, he helped his brother get rid of drug addiction. He helped his younger sister Katya to start a singing career. With his help, she recorded three albums: Pronto pra te amar, Esperan?a and De corpo e alma (Ready to love you, Hope and Body and Soul) . His older sister runs his CR7 clothing store in Madeira, and Katya Ze's husband has become Cristiano's right hand. Cristiano's family members are always enthusiastic about all his endeavors. In short, they are his world.

Madeira

Cristiano comes to the island where he grew up and spent his childhood when he needs a break, when he wants to spend time with his family. He always describes Madeira in colors and even came there with Irina Shayk. In February 2010, a storm hit the island, killing 42 people and leaving terrible destruction in its wake. Ronaldo issued a statement: "I would like to offer my assistance in dealing with the consequences and carrying out operations to clear the rubble." After scoring a goal against Villarreal at the Bernabéu, he pulls up his T-shirt, under which he wears a Madeira T-shirt.

Obsessions

Friends and teammates call him Chris, but in the Real Madrid dressing room he is also known as El Ansia - Restless. “His colleagues know that Cristiano is obsessed in body and soul with many things,” writes the Spanish newspaper El Pa?s . “The abs workout, his eyebrows, his hair, his fight to be smoke-free, but also the trophies, the goals and, of course, the desire to win the Ballon d'Or again.”

Indeed, Cristiano has several obsessions, starting with his physical form and appearance. The Portuguese strictly follows the diet; he does not drink alcohol. If one day he does not adhere to the usual regimen, the next day he will spend more time in the gym. His ab exercises have become a true urban legend. Journalists love to ask him how many crunches he does a day. He likes to keep his body in good shape, at the peak of physical fitness, and maintain the image that he has popularized around the world.

His agency spoke out against several British tabloids that attacked him or his family. Sometimes it went to court, and he even won several lawsuits, such as a lawsuit against a newspaper that wrote that he went "on a binge" and spent 10,000 on parties. Cristiano does not like it when they interfere in his personal life or family affairs. He wants to control his image in the media as much as possible. On the other hand, he does not shy away from public statements - he likes to talk about everything in great detail.

According to legend, he is obsessed with the height of the lawn in his Madrid residence. His gardeners have to keep a close eye on the garden and mow the lawn perfectly. He is also said to be obsessed with the number 7 and his initials CR.

But more than anything else, he is driven by the desire to be the best – better than anyone else, and of course better than Messi – his rival in the race to the top of the football world. But this may have its consequences. Thus, psychologist Patricia Ramirez explains: “Sometimes we are so obsessed with what we want to achieve that it deprives us of the ability to achieve these things. When we are obsessed with something, it creates a lot of tension, which does not always create favorable psychological conditions for achieving our goals.

Psychologists say that anxiety, impatience, hypermotivation and excitement do not always allow us to show our best side. The Argentines even suggested that Cristiano visit a psychoanalyst so that he would realize his "super ego" and admit that he was obsessed with Lionel Messi. But for Ronaldo, it's not about the performance on the pitch, it's not about Messi, it's not about the goals, it's not even about the Ballon d'Or. His true obsession is something unattainable - perfection.

This text is an introductory fragment.

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