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I’m dating this girl, but it always seems to be up and down. I never know if we’re dating or not, but I think I love her. I want to be exclusive, and even though she says she does too, everything changes so constantly that it’s hard to keep up. I never know when to text her, call her, or just leave her alone – HELP!
– LoveHerLikeWarcraft
Everyone has been there. That one relationship that your peers warn you against, your parents frown upon, and even you know better than to believe in. But for some strange reason, cause unknown to anyone with a modicum of functioning grey matter, you continue to chase the possibility – the idea of – “happily ever after”.
It boils down to addiction, the same unhealthy infatuation that can also be sometimes unfairly associated WoW players. The seedy underbelly of unhealthy love can be traced to that exact chemical in your brain that keeps you completely absorbed in hours upon hours of World of Warcraft. Escaping reality and chasing fantasy.
There’s an underlying strand of excitement that is interwoven throughout tumultuous relationships that keeps you interested. That keeps you hooked. That keeps you desperately searching for a way to constantly attain that high and that ultimately prevents you from viewing the relationship objectively.
A high (or break from reality – like World of Warcraft) isn’t achievable for an extended amount of time, and intellectually you know that, but you’re too busy trying to find a way to get that fix, that high, that short-lived elevated illusion of happiness that the fantasy life provides to recognize that it’s a phantasm and that scoring the much sought after high (or break from reality) will ALWAYS end in a prolonged low (or the dreaded entry back into reality).
Without clarity, which the gaming-addiction-like-relationship prevents you from attaining, you are left struggling between high-highs and low-lows. There’s never a point where the relationship settles in to that natural plateau of ease and comfortability.
The answer, you ask? Quit. Get off the ride. Cold turkey – it doesn’t always work – but in cases like this it’s your only hope for breaking free from the addiction. You can’t allow yourself to romanticize the possibility of this roller-coaster-of-a-relationship settling down and ultimately working out. It won’t, I promise.
As with any addiction that provides with breaks from reality, YOU (and you alone) have to be ready to quit. You have to be prepared to experience withdrawals and resist the urge to seek out the escape. The escape is temporary, but the lows are what will permanently etch themselves into the fiber of your being.
Be strong. Get out now. Or be prepared to fluctuate between fantasy and cold hard reality, which is jarring at best.
