Throughout most of my life most of my stress relief and comfort I have found within myself. Within my own head, my imagination I guess you could say. Whether this was just staring at a wall and day dreaming or reading a book. I could almost always find comfort there however as I have gotten older there is one issue that I was always somewhat aware of that has slowly come to the foreground. My Imagination has begun to betray me when it comes to my relationships with other people specifically (attempted) romantic relationships. I have noticed that I tend to romanticize people and imagine relationships with those people. I think my brain naturally does this because often times my imagination has been something that comforts me however in this scenario it actually hurts me and any chance of actually forming a meaningful relationship. This can also cause me to be extraordinarily anxious with physical symptoms such as almost fainting (which is not a typical symptom for me) and tremors in my hands (a common symptom for me) when I am around these people. Recently I started college, my first job and moved towns which I feel I have handled fairly well however I have been rather lonely. I met this girl at my work (she is incredibly nice and is my coworker) and I instantly fell into this trap of romanticization and day dreaming I think it was even stronger in this case just because of how I have been feeling recently. I honestly did not even realize that I had fallen back into this trap again until I got a slap of realism in my face just yesterday.  She came into the my place of work to buy something and with her was her boyfriend. Instantly I was devastated and angry. I was not at all angry at her though I know sometimes guys can take it all out on the girl but that is not the case here at all I was merely pissed off at myself. Its like the second I saw them together and my heart sank I looked back on the past few months and realized I HAD DONE IT AGIAN like an addict relapsing. I felt in that moment that for the past few months I had been falling down a pit but had not realized I was falling until I finally hit the ground. We both made eye contact and I just rushed to the back as if I was going to grab something however in reality I was busy bracing myself at one of the tables to prevent myself from blacking out and also I felt my usual symptom of tremors in the hands return like seeing an old friend you would prefer to avoid. I should point out that there was never any evidence that she was single I think I just assumed she was to fulfill my hopeful romanticizations. I have not seen her since but I probably will when I go in for work tomorrow and I just do not know how to feel about the whole situation. Maybe you could contribute your own story or talk about how you overcame the same issues.