I'm wondering if anyone else has this experience, because none of my friends do, and I feel very alone and \*extra\* mentally ill lately.

&amp;#x200B;

I've always been boy crazy. Starting in second grade, I remember having an intense and obsessive crush on a boy in my class, I pestered him constantly, to the point where he \*and\* my classmates told me they hated me and thought I was crazy (I actually remember referring to him as "my favorite person" which is funny now that I think about it).

Every school year, I had a crush on at least one boy that consumed a huge amount of my brain space and had me obsessively writing their names, and my initials+their initials, and all the classic young love crush stuff. I regularly wrote stories about me and \[insert boy\] being in love. I would pray to god every night asking that we could get married (when I switched crushes, I would apologise and ask him to cancel the old request and here's who i \*actually\* want to marry, sorry, please, thank you, in the name of the father, son, holy spirit, amen).

The thing is, I could tell, even at that age, that my crushes were far more intense and obsessive than my peers. And it only intensified the older I got. And after I hit puberty? Forget about it.

I remember thinking pretty fucked up stuff, too. For instance, when my dad died in fifth grade, I remember thinking, "Well, if my mom dies, I can at least live with my cousin and be with the neighbor boy I am in love with." I mean, this was my logic as an 11 year old.

Of course, when I actually got my first boyfriend in 8th grade, the sexual element began, and further intensified/complicated my relationship to, well, relationships. I know everyone has different timelines for their sexual awakenings and weird and fucked up stuff happens to a lot of people when they're a little too young. (If my mom knew anything about my experiences, she'd have anyeursm.)

I think a lot was exacerbated by a) my debilitatingly low self esteem and b) I was a chubby girl and the "DUFF" of my friend group I guess you could say, so when boys started paying attention to me it was like, really? Me? Yeah, of course I'll s\*ck your d\*ck!

&amp;#x200B;

I am in my mid-twenties now, and I fucking hate this about myself. Sometimes I call myself a hopeless romantic but really, it's me having a panic attack and urges to self-harm when the current obession doesn't text back. Every new prospect is almost immediately my fp and the subject of an exhausting amount of my mental energy. I am imagining what it would be like to live with someone after one tinder hookup. I hate it so fucking much.

I am a quiet borderline, so I don't blow up their phone or beg for their attention or shower them with gifts or anything like that. But if I sense the slightest lack of reciprocation, my heart sinks and there are boulders in my stomach and my throat is on fire and I sob into my pillow and engage in various forms of self-destruction. And then when they text back, my heart soars and I feel elated and euphoric and regain the will to live.

I have so much love to give, and I want someone to give me a beautiful, requited, compassionate, comforting and all-encompassing love right back. I want someone, just once, to be as obsessed with me as I am with them.

&amp;#x200B;

I'm curious about other people's experiences with this. I'm also curious about any of your theories regarding \*why\* this happens. I know personally that I was emotionally neglected after my father died due to my mother's drug addiction, and have had horrendous body image/ED since I was young (thanks mom), and just poor/non-existent self esteem in general. But, it seems to have started so early on, before all of that, so I'm curious if you think there are other factors to this obsessive boy-craziness. Social conditioning? Rom-coms? Seventeen magazine? Astrology? Genetics?

What is your experience?

**tl;dr** I've been boy crazy since I was 7, please tell me I'm not the only one.