Should I cut off my accidental love?

Dear Rosezilla,

I met man we'll call Jose, several months ago. I'm not really a monogamist, so we had a casual sexual relationship. Out of the blue one day, I developed feelings for Jose and before I knew it, I was madly in love. Suddenly, Jose told me had to move far away, and that was the end of our relationship.

Later I found out that he had moved with a "girlfriend". I also know he checks my personal blog often and knows my feelings. We still email and chat from time to time, but should I cut him off completely?

-Accidental Love Victim



Dear Accidental,

Short answer: yes.

Long answer, including the why and how:

You fell in love. It happens. Don't beat yourself up over it. I'm sure other people would diagnose you with daddy issues, self-esteem issues, depression, who-knows-what.


The truth is oxytocin. The cuddle hormone. Women especially, just casually have an orgasm or breastfeed and suddenly, BAM!, the body floods with oxytocin like a toilet flushing.


Guys have oxytocin too, but while men sleeping around and then suddenly falling around is a fundamental rite of passage for any American man, yours is a cautionary tale of loose women. Booga booga.

There's much more to this story, of course. Whispered pillow talk, his eyes in the gentle, afternoon sunlight, his job as a life-saving orphan-healer. That's not going to help you here. All you need to understand is that when you think or speak or have sex with Jose, your body floods with oyxtocin.

The only problem here is that Jose is not the most honest guy in the world. And he isn't in love with you. And he enjoys the attention of your adoring, uncontrollable love.

You could torture yourself waiting for the next time Jose texts or calls or shows up in your stat counter, for the feel-good rush, or you could get rid of Jose and stick to far more reliable sources of happiness like puppies and ice cream.

Now for the 'how':

Block Jose from your email and chat. Don't just delete...Block. Delete him off your phone, or block him if you can. Go into stat counter and block his IP address. Genuinely do all the things possible to block him from contacting you, not just half-assedly delete him for the double-rush when he contacts you anyway.

Give yourself a week to do nothing Jose-related. At the end of the week, give yourself a reward. Next give yourself 2 weeks. Then a month.

Somewhere in this cold turkey rehab, you're going to try to test yourself by contacting him. Don't do it! Because right after the "urge to test yourself" phase, comes that week when you realize you haven't thought of him at all. Then 2 weeks.

Until one day you think, 'Cutting this guy off was so easy, I don't know why I got so worked up over him.'