Obsession or Affection: You Can’t Have Both

Recently, I was pondering life, love, and everything in between, and I realized something. I discovered the difference between obsession and affection. I had assumed that obsession meant extreme desire, and if someone was obsessed with me, then they must want me — ALOT.

I never stopped to consider WHY they were obsessed with me or if it was even a good thing. Do they actually want ME, or do they want to USE me?

That is the question.

Do they want to use me for my skills and talents? Or do they want to benefit from my skills and talents while also bringing something to the table that helps me as well?

It’s not personal. It’s business.

Relationships are transactional, a kind of commerce. When two or more people get together (as friends, partners, lovers, etc.), it’s because each person wants to get something out of it. This applies to bad relationships too, if you look closely enough.

So what do you get from obsession and affection? What are the results?

Affection can be felt. It makes the receiver feel comforted and secure. Obsession is like affection’s imposter. It easily gets confused with love and affection, but anyone that has experienced both knows the difference.

Obsession is all about the person who is obsessed, not the object of their obsession. They merely want to use the other person for their own pleasure, whatever that may be. It could be entertainment, emotional support, or stimulation.

Their overwhelming need for that product can translate as an overbearing attempt to force the object of their obsession to cater to them. There is no mutual enjoyment of each other, no gratitude, no endearing intimacy.

Obsession is a one-way street.

Affection is both felt and seen, often in the smallest actions. A gentle stroke on the head, an unexpected hug, a helping hand before you ask. Affection is the outward expression of an inward attitude towards another. It not only expresses how one person feels about another, it is meant to make the other person feel good. It considers the other person an important part of the relationship equation.

“Life is too sweet and too short to express our affection with just our thumbs. Touch is meant for more than a keyboard.”

Kristin Armstrong

With affection, there is a mutual flow of like and appreciation between two people. No scores are kept. No running list of infractions. Simply a natural back and forth of caring expressed in a hundred different ways. Affection fills a need, but in both people, so both benefit from the relationship.

Obsession doesn’t consider or respect the other person’s wishes or desires, even when they’re clearly stated. Obsession only sees one thing — it’s own agenda. As such, it cannot show empathy or compassion. It can only manipulate for its own ends, whether that’s by guilt or flattery.

Like’s got nothing to do with it.

If you look up the definition of obsession, the word “like” is nowhere to be found. That’s because like doesn’t exist with obsession. In my experience, someone who’s obsessive doesn’t actually like the other person, and as a result of their behavior, makes themselves unlikable.

Obsession mistreats what or who it’s obsessing over, whether it’s another person or oneself.

For example, when I obsessed about being skinny, I drove myself to starvation and overexercising. It didn’t matter that I killed my immune system and possibly damaged my thyroid and metabolism. My obsession demanded one thing: to look a certain way in the mirror. It didn’t allow for rational thought or behavior.

Obsessing about career success? Yeah, I do that too. Does it make success happen? Not in my experience. But it does make me overwork myself to the point of burnout, frustration, and sickness because I refuse to rest and feed myself properly. And then I don’t have the energy or brainpower to do what needs to be done.

Obsession works in a counter-productive way. It blinds one to the path to their goal. Being obsessive circumvents one from achieving their desired results.

“An obsession is a way for damaged people to damage themselves more.”

Mark Barrowcliffe

Affection satisfies the soul.

Self-care is a hot topic nowadays, and rightly so. Our workaholic culture demands the sacrifice of self-care to our own harm. Making it a priority can only improve our quality of life.

A big part of self-care is affection towards ourselves. It involves liking ourselves enough and considering ourselves important enough to treat well. Every time we listen to our body’s needs and satisfy them, we are being kind to ourselves. Every time we appreciate who we are and what we can do, we are being affectionate towards ourselves. And affection feels good.

“Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.”

C. S. Lewis

Obsession overrules good sense and self-care every time.

To feed an obsession is to drain oneself of life because obsession is never satisfied. But affection feeds the soul and perpetually renews itself, bringing life both to the giver and receiver of it.

(This article was originally published on Medium.)