I haven't told this story yet although it marks the beginning of my journey into embodiment work.
It’s deeply vulnerable. It’s full of the flaws and ego of my early twenties. I’ll also try not to make this sound like a bad romance novel. You’ll find many lessons interwoven in my retelling and I’ll add a chapter about the energetics at play, as well.
It’s heavily abridged, but 20.000 words are more than enough.
And if, despite all odds, the person I’m referencing throughout this story recognises himself, here’s an afterword for him specifically. (Link)
This is a long ride, so buckle up.
We start in 2018.
I was a dissociated, people-pleasing, hypochondriac. I'd been rejected by med school which I didn't even want to go to, but I'd been told I should become a doctor, so my ego struggled with what my soul actually wanted for me. I had chronic fatigue and chronic "anxiety" which see-sawed me from sleeping all day to adrenaline spikes and panic attacks. Whatever energy I had left, I dumped by daily, forced orgsms and p*rn, while at the same time being convinced I was asexual.
I used maladaptive daydreaming as a subconscious coping mechanism for all the unintegrated, unfelt emotions gripping onto my fascia. Socialising meant stress, instantly feeling disliked by everyone, not belonging, bending over backwards to be acceptable and "nice". My avoidant patterns were in control of my life.
I was a mess.
But I wasn't lost. Not really.
I knew life would show me the way in time.
And it did.
I literally woke up one morning with the sudden clarity that I should study Chemistry. It came out of nowhere. But I'd always had an A in Chemistry at school, so my mind was on board with it. And that year in autumn, I began a journey that'd lead me in a completely different direction than expected.
While I acquired valuable academic knowledge in Maths, Physics, Chemistry and even Biology, it was a tiny aspect of the actual reasons my soul had pulled me there. I saw my same old patterns play out: avoidance and inability to make friends, getting bullied, feeling victimised, and my nervous system collapsing into a state of self-pity.
After the first bad semester, I already chose to change something. I stopped trying to make people like me, I talked to multiple different groups instead of focusing on one, I didn't let profs or doctors make an example of me anymore and actually experienced the solidity of my inner rightness for the first time.
"I'm not tolerating more of this. I want better for myself.”
By embodying that willingness to grow, I unwittingly called in a volcanic eruption of transformation that’d immolate everything out of alignment in my life.
This transformation came in the form of a prof who leaked so much energy it instantly filled the whole room with invisible chaos.
I was immediately attracted.
You know what my first thought about him was?
‘He’s just like my mom!’
Back then, that thought wasn’t a huge red flag for me. Quite the opposite. I was fascinated by this man who felt so familiar. Like we were different branches from the same tree. His expansive gestures, quirky facial expressions, his metaphorical and lyrical speech, and almost innocent playfulness had me floored.
Where every other man felt deadened and dull, he burst with passion and enthusiasm.
To this day, I’ve never again met a man with a resembling kind of vibe.
And I’m achingly, heart-openingly grateful that I got to know him. He singlehandedly jumpstarted my journey into who I am today. I wish for him to experience the same amount of connection, love and wholeness that I’ve experienced since.
But back then, I had tons of unintegrated parental trauma and avoidance patterns. And a man who consciously reminded me of my mother was destined to stir them up.
And he did after his first lecture when I walked past him and smiled while he looked over my head instead of making eye-contact as he smiled back.
To my hyper-vigilant brain, this signalled rejection. My inner children slammed down the doors of my subconscious and entered gremlin-mode.
‘What the hell? Why isn’t he looking at me, dammit! Why do I always like the people who ignore and can’t see me (like mom did when I was small)!?’
And just like that, I had re-created the familiar pattern of idolisation-demonisation.
This wasn’t about him. He didn’t do anything wrong. My traumatised nervous system latched onto him because he represented my mother, and at the first hint of “rejection”, my body experienced physical symptoms of grief, stress, and fear—all unintegrated emotions from early childhood.
Do you see how that works?
Do you see why familiar people attract our attention and obsession?
It has nothing to do with them as individuals. It’s that they embody some part of our primary caregivers who hurt us, and our ego has covered the festering wound with compensatory behaviours to avoid looking at it.
That’s why other people remain our best teachers. They bring it all to the surface.
Despite this intense first meeting, it wasn’t “love at first sight”. I also wasn’t the only one who liked him. For the next two months, I attended his lectures without thinking too much about him otherwise. We interacted more and more, and the grief I’d felt the first time vanished when I realised we actually vibed well together.
In hindsight, we were totally flirting, cocking our heads at each other, copying each other’s movements, flashing our brows every time we made eye-contact.
But at the time, I hadn’t realised that yet. I had neither goal nor manipulation in mind. I just liked being in his presence and my body flirted on autopilot—which was a first. If you’ve seen me on video, you know I’m not leaky with my sexual energy. But with him, that side crept out involuntarily.
I had no idea he was married yet. He wore no ring, never mentioned his wife or kids like other profs, and the one time he ever commented on marriage, it was a defeated statement about how much work relationships take. It sounded like he was divorced a long time ago and had never found a new partner again.
I was growing attached to him without noticing.
Until he flew to a conference and we had a substitute lecturer.
The moment another man walked in, I realised I missed him.
A lot.
More than I should miss anyone I barely knew.
This realisation fucked me up. The first sliver of panic began to build. I didn’t want to feel any sort of dependency on anyone.
But at the same time, I remembered our chats.
I remembered how I could see right through him, like knowing when he wasn’t telling the truth about a file he hadn’t uploaded yet. At first he apologised and lied that he hadn’t had time, but from my steady, knowing look alone he corrected himself and admitted he’d forgotten.
I remembered when we opened the door simultaneously and met in the middle, stunned and staring at each other for longer than we should have before grinning and shuffling past each other.
I remembered us cocking our heads and beaming at each other.
This was bad.
Part of me knew it was. But I didn’t yet know how bad exactly.
I found out a week later.
I’d checked the room schedule for when he’d next hold a lecture in there which turned out to be three days before I’d see him in my lecture. That day, I decided to wait there. Students I’d never seen soon flocked in and so did he.
He walked past and we greeted each other before he disappeared into the room.
I sat for a moment longer. Then stood.
Or rather tried to because my knees buckled.
‘What the hell?’
I’d thought the expression “to go weak in the knees” was a euphemism. I’d had no idea that was a real phenomenon. It actually hasn’t happened to me again since.
I didn’t like feeling my body fail me one bit. It was a shock. I had a lot of judgment and shame around it.
Days later, I saw him during my regular lecture. That same afternoon, the STEM sections of the university organised their annual summer festival. I’m not a big fan of such events and didn’t want to go, but he asked us to stop by if we had time.
I was undecided for many hours afterwards.
By 5pm I decided to go.
I honestly didn’t expect to see him. There was a crowd of hundreds of people scattered over a large area, inside and outside of buildings, and my social anxiety dominated my mind already. I wasn’t meeting up with anyone and stood around for a while until some guy chatted me up.
That’s when I saw him a few meters away by the choir, clapping when their subpar performance ended. But no one else applauded, so he quickly stopped.
A kind gesture, but the lack of external validation had influenced him. ‘Too bad. He should’ve kept applauding anyway,’ I thought.
The other guy was still talking to me, so I refocused on him. A couple minutes later, He (and I’ll reference to my trauma bond as ‘He’ and ‘Him’ when necessary for clarity) walked by, already making eye contact with me. We flashed our brows at each other, as always, and he said hello, which I returned.
I noticed him stopping several meters away near the parking area, speaking on his phone for a while.
Then he returned, walked past us, and said hello a second time, complete with extended eye-contact.
Who walks past someone to greet them twice within a few minutes?
I remember how at ease I felt in my body, a foreign sensation to me at that time. Like I was where I’m supposed to be, at the right place, at the right time.
In hindsight, I know that choosing to go to that summer festival was a sliding door moment. I’d followed that nameless thing inside me pulling me forward and unknowingly picked a timeline. Standing there on the campus, the afternoon sun offering more than enough heat to dry the puddles still left from that morning’s downpour, I felt peace.
A few people I knew arrived and we spent hours chatting and eating the typical German ‘Bockwurst’ with bread rolls.
The real party began around 10pm when they put on music in one of the lecture halls. There was just enough space for 20 people to dance and the lights were on, but they were playing 80s songs and I felt loose and relaxed. Most of all, I really wanted to dance and enjoy the evening to the fullest.
I overcame whatever shyness I felt and just went for it with my group.
I don’t know how much time had passed, but one friend—who also vibed well with Him—nudged me and pointed up to the first floor’s railing. He was leaning against the banister, tapping His foot to the beat and watching us.
Without thinking, I said, “Look at him go. He’s coming down here any minute.” To which my friend suggested we wave at Him to join.
So we did.
And he came downstairs.
Actually, he swaggered and took his tweed jacket off slower than he needed, but I wasn’t complaining then and I’m not complaining now.
The lights were dimmed soon after and everyone danced in their group until midnight.
We didn’t dance together. I peeked at him a few times, impressed with his smoothness that I (and everyone else my age) totally lacked.
I was sweaty and tired, but also open and happy, as everyone left the hall and gathered outside to walk back to the main building.
I stayed with my group behind Him. At least until He stopped to tie his shoe. From then on he walked in line with us and started a conversation about the district, asking why we chose to live in a city so devoid of nightlife—to which I didn’t offer an answer, but I asked him where he lived.
He told me/us that he lived with his wife and adult kids.
To say I felt disappointed hearing that would be an understatement.
That elusive, unfamiliar, attached part of me was crushed. But mid-conversation, I could barely feel it.
He said something about cycling to work every day instead of using the car, except that day because he’d had a meeting and didn’t want to arrive sweaty.
He said that whilst holding and drinking a beer.
I raised a brow and nodded down at it.
He didn’t understand.
I repeated the gesture.
Now it landed. “You didn’t see that.” He made a line for his office building whilst the rest of the group chuckled in amusement.
I noted ‘drunk driving’ on my mental list of His vices. A list I’d been subconsciously writing from the beginning, but which now really came into my awareness.
This wasn’t a good man.
He was married with children yet had been flirting with me for months.
He was going to drive home while under the influence of alcohol.
But passing through his office building was a shortcut I wouldn’t miss out on at midnight, so instead of walking through the dark, I chose to run after him before he closed the (otherwise locked) doors. He held them open for me and we wished each other goodnight.
That night, I had a dream.
I dreamt I was grocery shopping and He approached me at the check-out. His face was in perfect detail, and his eyes looked at me they way they’d looked at me for months. Except now, I fully realised what that look meant, how it made me feel, the undeniable drop of truth in it.
I woke up gasping.
Everything fell into place.
I was attracted to him.
And to some extent, the feeling was mutual.
I’d never had a crush or a first love or even a date. I was convinced relationships just weren’t for me, that I wasn’t good enough, and honestly, I’m quite a hassle and it’s tattooed on my forehead, so why would anyone ever look at me so softly and gently—
I was in a panic.
I was in a panic because something inside my body was melting and I couldn’t stop it.
The runaway train had picked up full speed and I realised how out of control my situation was. How out of control it’d been from the start.
This was the natural, inevitable course.
From the moment I’d met Him, this was bound to happen one way or another, fast or slow.
So I surrendered to my experience.
What else could I do?
I’d grown attached. I liked being near him. He wasn’t just another human being I happened to know. He meant something to me. There was a charge between us and fighting wouldn’t extinguish it.
Fighting reality never worked. I knew this oh too well.
Predictably, my mind instantly took over. With this much energy and hormones running through my system—and without the life experience to recognise the pattern and stop it—I let myself dive deep. Mostly, I fantasised about dancing with him (literally, not sexually) and just having fun together.
I researched him. He’d told me more than enough information to find pictures of him, his house, wife and kids online.
Let me give you some advice: don’t research your trauma bond or crush. All it does is feed your mind a fantasy-version of a stranger. Every image drugged my brain into an artificial high that grew more and more addictive, putting my body into a constant state of too-much-too-fast.
I had zero tools to hold high sensation. I had not grown my capacity. My sole embodiment practice had consisted of whacking off every day for the past few years—and this was actually a good thing because at least I was connected to my soul and power centre.
The day I saw him next was the final lecture, on a Friday to boot. Everyone was crowding the locked door and He passed me by. I smiled and he awkwardly smiled back.
My body instantly fell into a cocktail of stress and excitement. How in the world was I going to survive 90 minutes of being in the same room as him!? I felt nauseous sitting in the middle of the row. For a while I thought I’d have to go to the bathroom to puke. But I was practiced in breathing exercises and calming myself down, so eventually my body stabilised.
During the lecture, a question came up for me and I decided to ask Him after class. Crush or not, I took the upcoming exams seriously and he was still my prof.
I wasn’t the only one. Two others were faster, so I waited at the other end of the long front desk behind which He stood and explained.
Soon enough, he was done and the two returned to their seats.
I could barely say, “I’ve got a question, too,” before he moved impossibly fast to my end of the desk, bent over, and bowed his head. He was so close to me, I was too stunned to speak.
He noticed. He raised his head a little to peek up at me, and I remembered myself enough to actually ask my question.
Honestly, I’d never been more turned on.
After a lifetime of boys/men betraying, insulting or trying to subjugate me, the first man I’m attracted to is literally bowing down before me!?
In public!?
For real!?
Of course my ego was involved here, too. How couldn’t it be?? This felt amazing!
What a way to end the semester.
My obsession solidified over the next few weeks. While studying for exams, I made time each morning to read on the turf by the main building in the hopes of seeing him. Which I did. Now I knew his bike, where he parked it, when he came to work.
If you think this stalking behaviour is bad, just wait. It gets worse.
Weeks passed. In August, the weather became rainy and cold after endless sunshine which reflected my emotional state quite well. For the first time in years, I cried and cried and cried. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. My insides were tearing themselves apart in grief and despair and confusion.
I never wanted to see Him again.
But simultaneously, I wanted the opposite.
What the hell did I want!?
I knew I couldn’t hide from facing my fears forever. And I was genuinely terrified of how my body felt just seeing him from afar. Nausea, lightheadedness, electricity, diarrhoea, gum pain, palpitations. His mere existence put me into dysregulation. Every abandonment trauma surged from the depths of my tissues, starting with the death of my twin in-utero (I hadn’t made that connection yet though).
I was actually terrified of fainting in public should I see him.
But I did what the deeper thing in me knew had to be done. I took walks around the area (which was easy because I lived right next to the main compound), seeing him twice from afar and making a beeline to escape his sights as smoothly as possible.
But something about him looked different. It took a moment to realise it. ‘Since when does he wear red corduroy pants?’ I vividly remembered him only in jeans. He would wear colorful corduroy pants for the rest of the year, as well as a gold watch.
Afterwards, I didn’t see him for three weeks. I adjusted to the nonstop high sensation nightmare my life had become. I felt more grounded. More capable of holding myself should I see him again.
At this point, I want to explain why my body was so dysregulated in the first place. It was the uncertainty that activated old abandonment wounds: 'I’m attracted to him, but he’s married and off-limits. Also, he can’t possibly like me back. I’m too young and uninteresting and not his type because I don’t look like his wife at all. But he seemed like he was attracted, on some superficial level at least. It's been over a month since he last saw me. He probably forgot about me already. In that case, would it be so bad for me to watch him from afar? Just looking isn’t forbidden. No one has to know.'
I decided that, since he was married and I wasn’t on his radar, there was no harm in sticking my hand out the door. I wanted to bask in a sliver of his light. Just eating on one end of the cafeteria while he and his doctorates ate at the other. That’s all I asked for. And if I could have that at least for a little while, I’d be happy.
My ego was adhered to the “I’m the biggest loser in town” identity. I was already convinced I was the worst piece of shit walking around, so it made sense that my first crush would be a married man. That’s exactly the kind of cruelty and suffering I expected from life. After all, this identity made me special in its own twisted way. It fit perfectly into my worldview and I wallowed in it.
Well, that worldview would be shattered.
I got the first inkling of that one bright noon when took a walk past the cafeteria. It’d been three weeks since I last saw him, so seeing him with his group at a nearby food cart made me realise he must’ve been on vacation. He wore a wine red dress shirt and stuck out like a sore thumb among the grey clothes of his peers.
‘Is the cafeteria closed or something?’ Curious, I crossed the street and checked the cafeteria’s doors, and indeed it’d remain closed until September.
I crossed the street again and continued my walk, when I turned my head to the left and saw Him stare in my direction. I stared back. I had no clue if he was actually looking at me or not, but in hindsight he probably was.
The next meeting in early September would leave no doubt. One sunny day, I took the familiar lunch trip to the cafeteria. I’d just paid and, tray in hand, I walked past the other check-outs when I noticed him waiting for his turn to pay and facing my direction. This wasn’t far away. He was right there.
Immediately, my nerves flared. ‘Fuck. Calm down. Don’t make eye-contact. Just sit in some corner and hide.’
This plan worked for two seconds before a fellow student saw me and waved me over to his table—right by the first aisle between check-outs and tables where people walked back and forth to either find a free spot to eat or enter/exit the building.
I welcomed the invitation. In my heightened state, I enjoyed his company and conversation. It let me spend some of my adrenaline. As we talked and ate, I saw Him and His group many tables away.
I breathed easier. Yes, this is what I’d wanted. Admiring Him from afar, unseen and unnoticed.
Time passed. Eventually, He and His group stood. I was still talking with the guy opposite of me when I saw Him turn his head a couple times before landing in our direction. The rest of His group walked down their aisle (the third from where the check-out line was) to the exit, but He chose to reroute. He walked back to the first aisle where our table was, holding his tray in one hand.
'What the fuck, he’s going to walk right past me!’
I didn’t let my thoughts show and kept smiling through the conversation.
Just when He was seconds from passing me did I glance up at Him, still smiling. He ran his free hand through his hair and smiled back with that familiar soft gaze. And a split second later, He’d walked past me to the exit area.
My fellow student blinked, confused by what had just happened.
I acted like nothing had happened at all.
But inside me brewed pure chaos. What the fuck had that been!?
I excused myself and wished the guy a nice day, took my tray, and arrived in the exist area just in time to see Him exit the doors several steps behind His group. I crept behind them, hoping he wouldn’t turn around, and he didn’t. He kept his head down, grinning at the ground as he walked.
What?
Had He just separated from his group to make a detour to walk past me? Because it sure seemed like it.
My self-hatred was strong, but not strong enough to completely deny reality.
This required further investigation. Every day, I’d sit at the same spot, at the same time.
He and His Group weren’t always in the cafeteria. But when they were, He walked past me without fail and we made eye-contact, sometimes he even added a quiet ‘Hello’.
One time, He arrived late. Through the huge windows, I saw him outside rushing to the entrance, and he must’ve been in an excellent mood because, as he swept past, he turned to said windows, grinned in my general direction and cocked his head to the side.
‘He can’t be doing this on purpose. There’s no fucking way.’
Exam season began.
Physical Chemistry 1 was infamous for being the biggest hurdle second-semester students faced. 63% failed their first attempt. I’d prepared accordingly and passed.
The day they announced the exam results online was dark and rainy. I sat with several fellow students by the huge windows, many tables away from my usual spot and half an hour too early.
He arrived around the same time as always. This time, He and His group sat at a first-corridor table. The cafeteria was packed, but I accepted the chance for a role-reversal. Up until this point, He’d been the one to walk past me. Now, I was the one who walked past, greeting him with a smile and eyebrow flash—which he returned.
I even did a detour outside, passing by the windows and looking into the building, wondering if he noticed or cared.
I was enjoying this little game.
Whatever stress I’d felt had vanished. We’d reached a mutual, unspoken understanding of greeting each other, same time and place, once a week. This was predictable. Stable. Certain.
One week later, he broke the routine.
It was Friday, 21st September. That afternoon, my sister and I would pick up her new puppy, so I was already excited and energised. I sat at my usual spot, chatting on the phone, when I saw Him peer through the glass partition between check-out and eating hall, just a few meters away. I saw him smile and duck down to pay as I hung up, then emerging from behind the check-out counter stone-faced and scanning the (almost empty) cafeteria for a place to sit.
‘Should I wave? Would that be too much? Oh well, here goes nothing.’
I waved twice, but each time I even slightly entered his view, he turned away. If this brings up second-hand embarrassment for you, I get it. But life saved me from awkwardness because guess who saw me wave: two female friends who’d just finished eating and were waving back at me.
They stood by my table and we caught up about our plans. I was still excited about meeting the puppy, so I kinda forgot all human conduct and hammered on the table with a joy-crazed squeal. Like, “We’re bringing the puppy home in two hours and I’m so happyyyyyyy!”
After they left, I turned back around and. . . He and His group sat right in front of my table, His back facing me.
‘Oh. Guess he saw me freak out in public. Well, now he knows I do that sometimes.’
So much for trying to act normal and discreet. But what’s the use crying over spilt milk?
I kept munching my fried potatoes, pretending not to notice when he turned his head and stared at me from the corner of his eye. I couldn’t even see the whites of his eye anymore with how far he’d turned his pupil towards me.
It was pretty obvious: him choosing that table was intentional.
In that moment, I didn’t have time to acknowledge what that meant.
After a while, they stood. He took his tray, turned, we made eye-contact and said hello.
And before I could blink, he was right in my face, stooping low to say, “I suppose you’re one of the few who passed the exam.”
Two observations drilled themselves into my memory:
First, his eyes were a much darker shade of brown than I’d guessed.
Second, he’d indeed seen me freak out, but attributed it to me having passed the exam. Fair enough.
I laughed in surprise and his sudden proximity. “Sure did!”
He talked about how he and the others profs were discussing the high failure rate, how to help students understand the content better.
Meanwhile, I just stared at him. I remembered an article I’d read about body language and attraction markers, specifically how extended eye contact conveys interest. I decided right then and there to test that.
While he told me about the longstanding problems with Physical Chemistry 1, I listened, smiled and gazed steadily into his eyes—which he kept averting until he realised mine weren’t, then he kept his steady as well.
Almost ten minutes later, he suddenly stood straight, visibly more energised and beaming while I felt suspiciously grounded. We wished each other a good day and he walked to the exit, but we kept staring at each other. This meant he walked with his head remaining turned back at me, and he’s lucky the cafeteria was nearly empty because he couldn’t have avoided a collision with someone walking like that.
In hindsight, I wonder what that whole scene looked like from a bystander’s perspective.
He joined his group who’d been waiting for him by the exit throughout the whole spectacle.
Just like the first time, I slowly followed them outside. He was gesticulating widely as he talked, skipping and bouncing on his heels.
I wasn’t too far off from jumping around myself. I immediately called my mom and told her what happened. Predictably, she wasn’t happy to hear it. She knew I’d become obsessed with a middle-aged married man, and the fact that he was stoking the flame concerned her—as it should.
Her telling me I was crazy did nothing to dampen my mood.
(Continuation in Part 2)
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