Wild Minds network

Maladaptive Daydreaming: where wild minds come to rest

Can you love someone you don't know?

So, i've seen the discussion asking if anyone has been in love with their DD character, and many people said they have. I'm wondering though, if it's possible to be in love with someone you have never met. I DD of real people, but I do not know them. I know how i imagine them to be, though, and i think i may love THAT person. So is it possible, in your opinion? I mean, don't we all love our characters? How can you not love someone who consumes your every thought? And if we love them, why can we not be IN love with them?

0 members like this

Comment

You need to be a member of Wild Minds network to add comments!

Join Wild Minds network

Comment by ILivin MyHead on January 27, 2013 at 11:12pm: I definitely have fallen in love with my characters. What this means to me is that it gives me a guidline of who I am looking for and what traits I want in someone. Sometimes I worry if I've set my sights too high so I've tried to make my DD realistic by giving my characters flaws. This has made it more interesting to me and has in some ways motivatied me to be the person I want to be with my characters.

Comment by Jennifer on January 27, 2013 at 4:07am: @Funky-Owls

I love what you said about how loving fantasy, made up people can really interfere with your expectations for real-life people. I have always gone around naively thinking to myself, Oh, it's okay; One day you'll meet that one person that is exactly like Max. You'll be so happy, and your relationship with this person will be as perfect as Max's and Lizzie's.

Wrong. (Max and Lizzie are my two main characters. They're so in love, and they're together, and their relationship is just a beautiful fairytale. And I don't think it's possible to find love like that in the real world. In fact, I don't think love really exists anymore in the real world. The movies we see all make it out to be so much more than what it really is. Sending all of us the message that a Happily Ever After is waiting for all of us. -__- That's just a really high expectation, in my opinon. Love like that exists in my mind, but probably not in real life. You really had a point. :)

Comment by Dusty on January 25, 2013 at 10:56am: I think we can truly fall in love with the IDEA of a person without falling in love with the person themselves. I've never been in love with a real person so I'm not really sure about that though, so maybe it is totally different with a real person.

That said, I have discovered through experience that having strong feelings for someone you don't know, or who isn't real, can really interfere with expectations for real people. After years of fantasizing, it's hard to find a guy in real life that lives up to my expectations. Sure, I still had feelings for my crush after I met him, even though he didn't live up to my expectation. But because the feelings were already there, I still found him attractive and appealing even though he was much more "average" than I had liked to imagine, in terms of looks, personality and demeanour. However, if I had just met him on the street without any prior feelings for him, would I have been immediately interested in him? Not likely. He's not really that special a unicorn.

I think crushing on fake people blinds us to being interested in real people who aren't necessarily special ... the kind of men that are similar to the ones I dd about are extremely few and far-between.

Comment by Jennifer on January 24, 2013 at 11:36am: @Rashomon Effect
I understand what you're saying, and it makes sense. We may just have 2 different views, but that's okay; That's part of being human. It's interesting to hear your side of this. Neither one of us could be lying to ourselves, nor lying to each other; Like EludeMyFantasies had mentioned earlier, Love is not the same for everyone. :P

Comment by taffle on January 24, 2013 at 9:09am: I try not to do this. I try to separate the real world from the DD world. My DD character is in love but I am sure I'm not.

Comment by Jennifer on January 24, 2013 at 5:12am: You're very welcome, Grace! I read what you said in response to Rashomon Effect, and I couldn't agree more...GREAT way to word it, I just love how you put that. I couldn't have said it better! :)

Comment by Grace on January 24, 2013 at 4:55am: Thank you Jennifer- you just made me think of something :)

That is my view of being in love; that both people love each other.

Well, Rashomon Effect, in our minds, they love us back. I understand what you're saying, too, about not being able to be in love with a nonexistent person (even though my DD charatcer I'm referring to happens to be living, just not anywhere close to me) but to us, they are real. Maybe not reality, but real. So, we feel their love because we create it.

Comment by Jennifer on January 23, 2013 at 8:57pm: I am totally in love with my daydream boyfriend/fiance, Max. He treats my Ideal Me soooo well, and he's such a sweet guy to her. He is Bipolar, but only expresses love to my Ideal Me. He has blown up of all of my other characters, but when it comes to his girlfriend/fiance, he doesn't have the heart to raise his voice because she's such a sweetheart and he loves her so much. He has flaws, but that makes him all the more perfect in my mind.
I got the idea of him from my REAL ex-boyfriend. His name was Max...He's also Bipolar. But he was such an ass to me. He would constantly try to hurt me and put me down. He made me cry numerous amounts of times, and really messed me up for a while. Sent me into a month-long, excruciating depression, and taught me that Love is not a REAL thing in this world. I once believed I loved him. I told him everyday. And I gave him everything I had of me. But he beat me down. When he left me, there wasn't one part of me he didn't take with him.
We are no longer in contact anymore; He cut me off completely, for he was a long-distance relationship. I am only 15, but really understand what a real heartbreak feels like. I experienced all of this this previous summer, but I really suffered. I think my daydream Max is where I know I can give someone everything and not have them shoot me down and make me bleed. Someone I know will return the favor, someone I can count on to really make me happy and tell me he loves me and truly mean it when he does. My Ideal Me and my daydream Max are happily together and still strong today. :) The real me and the real Max are not. I do not love the real Max. I DO love my daydream Max.

Comment by Dreamcatcher on January 23, 2013 at 1:29pm: This:

"When I say "perfect" i just mean that he is perfect because i love him. In my DD's he makes mistakes, as anyone else, but i still imagine him as perfect, because his mistakes and quirks make him even greater."

And this:

"I think its that we feel as if we know them, even if we don't. I think about him all the time, and because of it I have made him who i want him to be, and in my mind, hes perfect."

I get what you are saying. My dreamworld consists of many different couples (ages, sex. orientations, even different species...). I honestly can't tell if I "love" some characters, but I do admire/adore them. It is an outlet for emotions that can't be openly shown. Characters make me feel happy, content and safe.

Comment by Grace on January 22, 2013 at 3:50pm: I agree, M Hunter. Very weird, yet fascinating. And when I say "perfect" i just mean that he is perfect because i love him. In my DD's he makes mistakes, as anyone else, but i still imagine him as perfect, because his mistakes and quirks make him even greater.

I think we (those with MD) have crazy, but beautiful minds. I can't imagine trying to explain something like this to other people. I don't think they'd understand. The human mind really is amazing. It's capable of so much.