I’m Sorry That You Were The Object of My Crazy Sexual Obsession

In 2007, when I worked at Modern Postcard, I became obsessed with a young twenty-something Asian man. I will call him Taku, from here on. When I first met Taku, I did not have any particular feelings about him. He was into stuff that I wasn’t: fast cars, racing motorcycles and Manga. But there was one interest that we shared: art. Taku could draw really well and he had a deep intensity about him. I sat in a cubicle that faced directly towards his work station. He worked in a glass enclosure, walking and moving giant printing plates into dryers. All day long he was in my view and all day long I watched him.

Taku was very lean, the same height as me, had a perfectly square face and straight black hair. He was half Korean and half Mexican. His lips were perfectly shaped. I wanted those lips. He was witty, cocky and fairly intelligent. He possessed a strong confident air, something that I lacked. The longer I watched him in his glass enclosure, the more time I spent thinking about him. Day in day out, I watched him. My gaze could not escape him. I could have requested to be moved to a different cubicle, one that did not face him, but I didn’t want that. I enjoyed watching him all day long, recording details that would be rearranged later in my mind.

Then the fantasies started hardcore. I became obsessed with imagining giving him a haircut at my apartment. In this particular fantasy, I would rub myself up against him while combing and cutting his hair. I actively thought about this for several weeks. I could not get this fantasy out of my mind. I began to crave him psychologically, emotionally and mostly, sexually.

We sort of became friends at work. I could barely be around him, though, because my sexual energy was so overpowering. It was volcanic and would cause my heart rate to increase, blood to engorge my veins and my stomach would churn like I was about to die. My attraction to him defied logic. He was 21 years old and not similar to me in most ways. My brain was clearly misfiring.

When I talked with him at work, I would inject sexual references into every conversation. He always seemed uncomfortable when I did this. During our breaks, I became a walking jellyfish and would follow him wherever he led me. My will power vanished as soon as he came around my body. It was like my personality no longer existed. My sexual desire for him blotted out everything else.

He showed me videos on YouTube, like Indian Thriller — Girly Man which I really loved. He showed me other stuff that I really didn’t like, but that I began to like because he liked it. Suddenly, motorcycles became interesting to me. I listened intently to everything he said. He told me about his mother, his girlfriend, his childhood. Naturally, I didn’t much like hearing about his girlfriend, but I didn’t care too much, either. Hearing about his girlfriend did not dimish my obsessive sexual feelings for him. This was very selfish and bad of me to not respect his personal life.

I was 37 years old but I felt like I was 16. But just because I felt like I was 16 years old, didn’t mean that Taku felt that way about me. To him, I was nearing middle-age. He viewed me an old lady, someone he did not feel any passion for. His sexual disinterest in me fueled my sexual passion for him. This reality created a safe way for me to concoct the most intricate fanstasies about him, because I knew there was no way that my affections would be returned.

This personality trait of mine has its roots in fear of intimacy, low self-esteem and antisocial tendencies. It also is a throwback to my first experience of love at the age of 15: my very first love disappeared one night, leaving behind a letter to me that explained that he never loved me. The letter gave me a directive: to wipe away all my memories of him completely. It turned out that he had had a steady girlfriend in his hometown during the entire time of our “romance”. I was simply a dalliance to him, but to me, he was my entire romantic universe. His name was Tad and his football number was 34. He was the first boy I ever kissed, the first boy I held hands with and the first and only boy to give me poems that consisted of Prince’s Little Red Corvette lyrics. After receiving his letter, I stopped eating for 2 weeks. This experience began my lifelong association of suffering with love.

Back to Taku. After months and months of obsessing over him, my brain couldn’t take it any more. I woke up early one morning and wrote a gigantic, sexually graphic letter that described how I felt about him. Unfortunately, I gave this letter to Taku. I began taking drastic measures to make him visit my apartment. Surprisingly, all of my effort paid off and he came over to visit me one evening.

Before he arrived, I drank several beers and I had set up the hair-cutting chair and placed newspaper on the floor to catch his chopped-off locks. When he arrived, I had him sit in the chair. I already had on an apron (I cannot remember if I had a shirt underneath the apron or not…my memory is clouded). I had on really short jean shorts. Just like in my fantasy, I leaned my legs against him while trying to even out the cuts. I took liberties, crossed boundaries and my body felt like it was on fire. I had invested so many months of active fantasy on this one moment. It was like being on the strongest drug in the universe.

I hoped that we would have sex after I gave him a haircut. It didn’t happen. I never got to kiss him. However, after I finished his haircut, he suggested that I lie down. Of course I did this quickly. He asked me to pull down my pants. I did this, too. He inserted his finger into my hole, then he withdrew it. That was all. Then after we smoked some cigarettes, he left my apartment.

The next day at work I went into his glass enclosure, sexual desire heavy on my mind. I began talking about crazy stuff, mostly about how much I wanted to have sex with him. He looked at me and said, “You’re fucking insane. Leave me alone.”

I felt anger and shame. I felt disgusting. It was the most horrifying and helpful thing anyone has said to me in the last 10 years. He woke up my mind to the reality that I had been using him as a sexual object to fulfill my fantasies that involved no one besides my own mind. I had misappropriated my energy onto someone who never asked for it. His words made me realize that I was sick.

If you are reading this Taku, I am sorry for using you as a sexual object and I want to thank you for making me understand that I was a sick person. I’ve recovered successfully from this obsessive disorder. I’m still the same person with the same amount of energies and crazy ideas, but now I have learned how to respect others and pay attention to how people are reacting to me. I no longer misappropriate my sexual feelings onto people.