wispfox

So, I thought I would update people on the nooding on intensity and obsession that I've been doing. Lots of conversations with lots of people about it have helped me get a better sense of it (although there are certainly still gaps).

The links may be locked - they aren't really necessary to read in order to follow this, I don't think. If you're on my friends list and really, really want to read either of the links (I can't recall if either of them are more tightly locked than just to my friends' list), let me know.

I seem to believe that intensity, fascination, and obsession are on a continuum of some sort. Intensity still permits one to communicate verbally and to take in input from others, but one's attention is very focused. Fascination seems to cause speech to be much more difficult, but input from others still gets through. Obsession appears to not take in input from or about the object of obsession.

I appear to have no certain memories of having had people be intense at me, rather than about a conversation, and am therefore not sure if I would interpret it as obsession or not, and not sure what situations that might reasonably happen in (although I have some guesses).

However, due to the fact that I appear to feel that obsession is almost entirely (possibly completely) relating to whether or not the possibly obsessive person is still able to take in and interpret new information from/about the object of obsession, I suspect that it is entirely possible for someone to be intense at me, as apposed to about a conversation (which is where I seem to have the vast majority of memories of non-uncomfortable intensity), without making me uncomfortable.

As well, one of the people I was talking to put into words a possible reason *why* having people's attention focused on me could be problematic. Having someone's attention focused on me has some inherent vulnerability to it, and is much more significant/scary if the focused person is not open to input from me. (That's paraphrased - the words originally used were better, but didn't really fit well into my current train of thought) Being listened to means, if needed, I can *do* something constructive about the feeling of vulnerability, by asking for the focus to be reduced. For example.

I also seem to have a bit of general trouble with having people I don't feel like I know be intensely interested in me. I tend to be one for whom people that have not caught my attention are more or less constantly in 'people I don't know' category, even if they have had ample opportunity to get to know me from watching me or from very superficial interactions with me. So this may entirely be due to my belief that people I don't know must not know me well enough to reasonably have interest in anything other than getting to know me better (which is not generally of the highly intense sort of interest, at least for me - it might become intense interest *after* I get to know them a bit better) - just because *I* would't. Odd, that. But not, I think, something I have much control over. Nor am I entirely sure that it's something I would want to change. So I'm not concerned about it.

So. Appears to be partly related to how well I know a person, and partly related to how willing they are to take in new input about or from me (which can include good enough reading of body language that they realize I'm uncomfortable before I'm aware enough of it to say something - it doesn't *have* to be verbal input).

[edit: 'because' ought to have been 'before', in the final sentence of this post, so I fixed it.]