YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I have an intense sexual attraction to a friend's mom, to where I've been waking up fantisizing about her for the past few weeks. I've known her my whole life and can't remember a time when I didn't find her beautiful. I started to think about her sexually when I became a teenager and she would go on about how I cute I was whenever I went to her house. She had a pool and I'd go swimming, and everytime I'd feel like she'd size me up and say things like "You should be a model." No girls my age ever gave me compliments like that, so I held it in a special place that someone whose looks I always admired thought the same thing about me. It's never really gotten old for me, she's always been the #1 person I think about when I go to that place, I even got drunk one night and told her that on facebook. Although I'm sure she may have personally been flattered, she brushed it off saying "Looks like one your friends hacked your facebook!", I tried to tell her I was honest but I just looked more and more like a fool. Because where could it possibly be taken from there? However, I'm still glad I had the courage to do it, because it was something I kept secret for so long, never told a human soul and it was eating away at me so I figured if anyone should know, it's her. It's funny when I look back on times that we went to the mall together, the movies, I can't help but see them as little 'dates' of ours where I had an oppurtunity to advance, but just couldn't out of respect for my friend and her marriage. Now I look back at this window of time where this recently divorced woman was available and possibly interested in me and I was of legal age to be intimate with her but just couldn't go there because of how messy it would get with other people involved. It's a really uncomfortable place to be, hitting on a woman twice your age, because you feel like they know every trick in the book. What am I possibly gonna say to 'game' her? I actually think the basis of my attraction is seeing her as a fully grown woman who knows herself, and what she likes, and one of those things happened to be my looks. So, it made me feel safe and comfortable when I imagined us together, that we already liked eachother so much they wouldn't be any pressure to perform and we'd just go wild.

Anyways, I'm rushed for time here but I wanted to make this thread to share this fantasy that I am personally ashamed of having, but know I shouldn't be because it feels so natural. However, the most frustrating thing is the idea that I may never be able to have a relationship with this woman, but I think I'm better off with my thoughts, because they don't hurt anyone.

Ah yes. Your fantasy is nothing to be ashamed of: it is one of the most common and delicious fantasies. Not in my wheelhouse, but in plenty of peoples'.

You bring up alot of interesting points. If I may offer my thoughts, remembering that I am a rake (ie jerk).

* Yeah, drunken professions of attraction on fakebook rarely have a good outcome, but what the hell you took a chance. Good for you.

* Yeah, if it would be messy (ie hurt) others, then it is best not to pursue her. Cherish your friendship with your buddy.

* IMHO, age (and weight) is just a number, and means nothing in the game of love.

* "There is a game of love", says no less a respected source than Daft Punk. Since they didn't say _if_ there should be a game of love, we'll leave that question for the philosophers and moralizers.

You say that the game of love is less fun because older women "know all the tricks"? Oh to the contrary, my friend: they know all the rules of the game. (I believe that many women are born knowing the game of love, but that is a whole 'nother story.) Since they know "all the tricks", they are able to cut out much of the social-niceties-preliminaries, the initial superficial peacock dance*, and get to the deeper dance of courtship. Such is my experience. Results may vary.

(*There is a time for everything in the game of love, and the initial peacock dance can be incredibly satisfying in its own way.)

* What will you say to "game" her? Since there is a human under all that sexiness, discuss topics interesting to humans: food, culture, passions, dreams. Art, music. The good things in life.

When I advise a man whether to pursue a woman, I suggest one of two actions, both perfectly in their own way:

1. Go out in unambiguous blazing ball of fire and openly and honestly pursue her. Even if you go down in flames you'll provide a magnificent spectacle for others to admire. Everyone admires boldness.

2. Keep this delicious, smoldering desire in your heart, and take it to your grave. Enjoy the slow burn sexual tension between the two of you. This is especially appropriate when an assignation would be socially inappropriate for public consumption for the chattering masses. Of course, if you attract her enough, sometimes unexpected things happen privately behind closed doors.

If you want to pursue, naturally enough have her observe you with other women, and conveniently enough feed stories about your dating to your friend.