Obsession

I'm just watching a favourite film. It's listed in my profile, and is called Serendipity

What I like about it, in all honesty, is that it's the kind of relationship I want and believe in. It's magical. That's really just about it. It involves synchronicity and magic and romance and something so very very special. I don't think I can handle an "ordinary" relationship. In that respect, I'm always looking for something that's so out of the usual that it's kinda silly, really.

One such target - and that's the best way I can describe this woman whom I became certain was "the right one" - came into my life in 1992, when I was at Expo, in Seville.

It was all actually rather odd, I have to say, and I confess I'm still a little attached to the romance of this thing I had for her.

I'd been in Seville a few weeks and, to cut a long story short, I met a witch who gave me a magic spell to meet my perfect partner. Just as I did the spell, I went down to the pool and I met an American woman who, just for secrecy's sake, we'll call Courtney. She was wearing, from what I recall, a mauve swimsuit, topless, and was sitting on a blanket reading a book about spirituality and relationships.

I went over and chatted to her for a bit, and what was remarkable was that there were just loads of coincidences about us both. I mean it was uncanny. She was telling me one thing, and I was telling her that I'd done/was doing the same thing. That kept happening, over and over. Then, hilariously, she decided I was bullshitting her. That was the most ironic thing of all. I could see her expression as she was believing less and less that I was telling her the truth, and that I was just bullshitting her. She played a game of cards with me to see if I knew the game. It was the one where you seemingly predict the right card.

I knew it, so I told her.

We met a couple of times, and then we went on a trip down to Cadiz in my MG. It was funny, because I could read her like a book. Then one night I stayed in her bed when we all went out for drinks. I remeber clinking our glasses together and it was like my glass melted or something. It was the weirdest thing.

But she had a boyfriend back in the states. I knew that they had problems, but I didn't make any kind of move on her. I did tell her that I wanted to kiss her, at one point as we were drivng home. She didn't take too well to that...

But I couldn't ger her out of my head. The coincidences, the magic spell, the clink of glasses, the feeling I felt when I met her: all these things just made me think that she "was the one". It's so bizarre. but I've not felt like that with anyone before or since, I can tell you. It was like I saw right into her soul.

I wrote a silly letter to her from a Buddhist retreat I was on in Granada a little later, but the real problem came, I suppose, when I tried to call her from England a month or two later.

I'd been involved in a really serious car wreck during the drive back from Granada. I witnessed a head on collision, and there were people killed, very seriously injured and such. I sat with a woman who was dying in my arms, and when I got back I cracked up.

I was calling Courtney in part because I believed in something with her. That may sound odd, but I just thought she was a real person who had real, positive stuff going on in her mind. She was extremely creative, I know.

But she tried to avoid me. What was really difficult was that I really trusted the impulse and beliefs that went with what I was doing at the time. I knew I was an OK guy. But she was, as it turned out, the kind of woman who said things like "you scared me", rather than accepting she had her own fears, and was responsible for them. In that respect, she was like so many American women, I'm sorry to say.

But my obsession did continue for a bit. I knew I could easily be taken for something like a stalker, especially when dealing with someone with such a vivid but negative imagination. But I was prepared to take that risk. After all, what would I be like if I didn't take risks? But I was a bit scared, I have to admit, of the fear that there is in America. It's the kind of place where people will shoot you because of their assumptions. Not the place to "scare" someone.

So it was all a bit of a shame, really.

I wrote a couple more times, explaining where I was coming from. Even visited Kansas City, where she was from. I called her place on time, just to talk to her mother, just so I could get her to see that I was just a bit unusual, though harmless. But no dice.

It's so sad that there's so much paranoia in America. But much of it comes down to conditioning. In retrospect, there were signs about Courtney's belief systems, even as I was talking to her at the start. I'd mentioned about Frances' rape, and I asked her if anything like that had ever happened to her. She said that "a black man once followed her home" and I thought it interesting that his colour was relevant to her in the story. Built in, assumed and unprocessed racism...

So she wasn't such a broad minded, intelligent individual after all.

But I swear to this day that there was something...karmic or whatever...and I'd love the chance to explore what it was.

I suppose the thing was the magic aspect of it all, and the fact that I felt I knew her absoluteley, from the moment I saw her. That was all, I guess, and that's what led to the obsession.

Finally, talking to her mother (who sounded way too involved in her life, I have to say) I found that she was "happily married" So that was it, as far as I was concerned, and I let go of the whole chase, and the whole obsession.

But it's interesting, isn't it? And I wonder if there'll ever be someone who appeals as romantically to me, in a way like the couple do to each other in "Serendipity"

Who knows?

But obsession's a funny thing, isn't it? I think we all have one at some point in our lives.

Fate's a funny old game, though, isn't it? I mean, here I am, nearly 49 years old and not married, and looking for some kind of superspecial thing with someone.

In the film, the guy's fiance has just given him a gift on the eve of their wedding. It's a book that he's been looking for for years, that has the name of the woman he met really briefly ten years earlier, and has been obsessed with all that time.

The kind of thing I imagine now is that "Courtney" will magically find this blog and read this.

Could synchronicity be that great?

All I want to do - all I ever wanted to do - was talk to the woman. Just tell her some of the things that happened after that meeting.


"Courtney", the subject of my obsession... 

I think that's one of the funniest things about the obsessive love thing: it scares the shit out of people. She was just scared, that's all.

But I was prepared to look foolish and stupid (as has just been said in the film) so I can honestly say that I've done my part. That was part of the adventure of chasing her - I was prepared to let myself look extremely foolish, and risk even coming across as some kind of stalker or something.

But the thing about obsession is it's perfect, isn't it? It's hanging on to fantasy, because reality is just too difficult to deal with.

Only thing is, though, which adds to the mystery: I met the witch exactly one year after last seeing her in Seville. It was the weirdest coincidence, involving tarot cards and all manner of things magical. That tied me into the obsession about Courtney again, and it's one of the main reasons I haven't been able to properly "let go" of wanting to at least talk to her.

But at the end of the day, anyone who is of the belief that the person they're obsessing over is "right" for them is entirely wrong. Otherwise they'd be with that person, wouldn't they? Anything else is just imagination, speculation, and fantasy.

And I've found out what it's like to be on the recieving end of obsession, though: It ain't very nice.

Still, we're all human. Nobody's perfect, right? All these human imperfectins make us the weird and wonderful creatures we are. I don't regret experiencing obsession.