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Ask Polly: How Do I Stop Being So Obsessed With My Boyfriend?

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I really enjoy reading your letters because most often the core of your response is to love yourself, to let yourself sparkle, to be you — and for a short while after reading I feel this sense of excitement and joie de vivre where I think “YES! I am going to love myself. I will find my passion. I will be happy!” and it soon fades. What I’m trying to figure out is how to truly want happiness and to love myself — because the way I see it now is similar to quitting smoking. I float around saying “I want to love myself, I really do, but —” and then find myself in the same sad state I’ve always been in. A big part of it, I feel, is that instead of focusing on me, I’ve always put my focus and love on somebody else. From a very young age, I had crushes, and would focus on that person. What that person likes. What makes that person happy. What I can do for that person. How I can be attractive to that person. How I can make that person love me. And as I grew older, that transferred into all my

(Mint Images/Frans Lanting/Getty Images.) Photo: Mint Images/Frans Lanting/Getty Images Hi Polly, I really enjoy reading your letters because most often the core of your response is to love yourself, to let yourself sparkle, to be you — and for a short while after reading I feel this sense of excitement and joie de vivre where I think “YES! I am going to love myself. I will find my passion. I will be happy!” and it soon fades. What I’m trying to figure out is how to truly want happiness and to love myself — because the way I see it now is similar to quitting smoking. I float around saying “I w

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