“I can’t stop thinking about her” is a common complaint that often catches you off-guard. You want to forget about her and move on with your life but you can’t.
If you had a long-term relationship with her and you got dumped, your problem is a little different. Read How to Get Over a Girl for an article more relevant to your problem. If you didn’t have an intimate long-term relationship with her and you find it hard to get her out of your mind then read on.
Not being able to stop thinking about a girl is often referred to as “oneitis”. Oneitis is an unhealthy fixation over a particular girl.
Signs Of Oneitis
Here are the signs that you are suffering from oneitis:
- You have a crush on a girl but she’s not interested in an intimate relationship with you.
- You have known this girl for a while, it started as a friendship, and later, you developed feelings for her. She either friend-zoned you, started dating someone else, or you just want to stop thinking about her for any other reason.
- You don’t want another girl. You want only and only her. You believe that no other girl can possibly measure up to her.
- You are occasionally adjusting your schedule to see her or you are going out of your way in the hopes of impressing her.
- Watching porn disgusts you because you can never imagine doing those “evil things” to your girl.
- You believe that you can only be happy if she loves you back.
- You orbit her in the hopes of winning her over. (-“One day will come and she will recognize my worth”)
- You overanalyze her mundane actions to figure out whether she’s interested in you or not.
- You are dreaming about starting a family and having kids with her although you haven’t been in an intimate relationship with her.
- You avoid other girls in the hopes of proving your undying devotion to her.
- You are walking on eggshells around her lest you make a mistake and mess things up.
- You ignore her faults and the red flags.
- You had a short fling with her, she moved on with her life and now you can’t get her out of your mind.
- She is in a relationship with another man and you are hoping that they will break up.
If you exhibit one or more of the symptoms above then you have a serious problem of oneitis that you must solve and move on with your life.
First, I will give you the good news, then the bad news. After that, I will explain the possible reasons why you can’t stop thinking about her. Finally, I’ll give you the strategies and tactics to not only cure your oneitis but also prevent it from happening with another girl in the future.
The Good News
- If you are obsessing over a girl then your basic needs such as shelter, food, and security are taken care of. You are trying to move up in the pyramid of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and this is not a bad or immature thing in and out of itself. Don’t fret. You just got caught off-guard and you possess the inner strength to cure your problem.
- If you are reading this article then you are aware of your problem and you are trying to find a solution. You are miles ahead of the men who keep wasting their precious time on developing futile tactics and strategies for winning over the subject of their infatuation. Recognizing a problem is a giant step towards solving it and you came to the right article for the solution.
- The problem isn’t the girl. It’s you. This is good news because if the problem was the girl then you would have little to no power to solve it. You have limited control (if any) over the behaviors and feelings of someone else. On the other hand, you have full control over yourself which makes it a lot likelier for you to cure your oneitis.
- You are a man. Women can obsess over a man for decades but it usually takes a much shorter time for a man to move on. Moreover, women will be unwilling to downgrade after falling in love with a high-value man, but men have no problem downgrading if need be.
The Bad News
- Oneitis is perpetual. You might manage to get over this girl but if your mindset remains the same there will be another girl in the future that you will develop oneitis for.
5 Reasons Why You Can’t Stop Thinking About Her
Here are 5 possible reasons why you can’t stop thinking about her. Read all of them and pick which one(s) correctly define your situation.
1. You rarely get female attention
You are so devoid of and thirsty for female attention that you fall head over heels in love with the first girl who (seemingly) recognizes your value. You rarely get any female attention (if any) so the simple act of paying attention to you immediately puts her in the “special girl” category.
Just like a money-poor man clings on to every single penny, a love poor man will cling on to the rare semi-attractive girl he thinks he has a shot with. If you squander this opportunity then God knows how many years it will take until another girl recognizes your worth.
On the other hand, it would be almost impossible to pine over a girl if you had no trouble getting attractive girls.
2. You are lazy
You grew up happily minding your own business until the hormones kicked in and you found yourself having to deal with the sudden gravitation towards girls. This newfound desire is an annoyance because you have only a few common interests with girls if there are any. You wanted to get this annoyance out of the way by getting a girl that you fancy and resume minding your own business.
But there’s a little problem. Girls are difficult to get. They are fickle, picky, and mysterious. The problem that you wanted to get out of the way as quickly as possible turned out to be a nagging pain in the ass. Now you can’t get her out of your mind because you have a whole new set of problems to figure out solutions for before you can move on with your life.
3. You have self-esteem issues
Your self-esteem issues lead you to subconsciously think that if a girl loves you then you can love yourself too.
4. You’ve bought into false societal conditioning
The modern world glorifies romance and paints women as infallible angels who can do no wrong. You were made to believe that your intense desire to fuck women is something to be ashamed of and you must conceal your intentions until you gain her trust. If you believe in the lies about women and romance, you might find yourself carefully planning how to get a particular girl and walking on eggshells around her (only to witness a confident man to come along, pick her up within the span of a few days, bang her senseless, and get away with treating her like shit).
Instead of allowing your whole faulty worldview to collapse, you keep believing the lies you were told about women. You think that she’s just an exception and one day you will find your soul mate. As long as you refuse to believe the lies you were told, you will keep searching for a soul mate that doesn’t exist. Pedestalizing women does nothing good to a man.
5. You are terrified of rejection
Before you open up to her, you wanted to make sure that she’s attracted to you. As time went on, you got more and more invested in her, which in turn made it even more difficult to stop thinking about her.
Most men are terrified of rejection. They waste weeks, months, or years trying to figure out the right time to open up to a girl because they are seeking a guarantee to not get rejected. Women certainly don’t make it easier for you as they are fickle, timid, and indirect.
What To Do (And Not To Do) To Cure Oneitis And Move On With Your Life
If you have oneitis then one or more of the above 5 factors are at work. Unless you completely cure your problems, you will keep catching oneitis with one girl after another even if you get over the girl you are currently obsessing over.
Here are the do’s and don’ts of curing oneitis and moving on with your life:
1. Do accept that YOU are the problem
You fell for her either because you had low-self esteem, you lacked options, you were lazy, you bought into the lies you were told, or you feared rejection. The common word among all of these reasons is YOU. None of these are her problems. You can’t even blame her for not being attracted to you since attraction isn’t a choice.
If you want to stop thinking about her and ensure that you don’t have the same problem in the future, you must change your mindset and your behaviors. There’s no other way. Remember that this is good news. Changing yourself is infinitely easier than changing someone else.
2. Don’t follow the advice of women
You can’t stop thinking about a woman and who knows women best? Women themselves, right? Wrong.
Women give terrible relationship advice that you must avoid like the plague. They will always say the following things like clockwork:
- Make her feel special. –> (You end up rewarding her for simply existing.)
- Work hard to gain her favor. Buy her flowers and other shit. –> (You are guaranteed to come across as weak and needy. Everyone hates weak and needy people, especially women.)
- Be patient. –> (You will be rewarded by watching some dude pick her up within just a few days after meeting her.)
- Be yourself. Someone who appreciates you as you are will eventually show up. –> (Do the same things and expect different results. Be insane.)
When women give relationship advice, they always think about how things should work in an ideal world. Not how things actually work in the real world.
Ignore womanly relationship advice at all costs. You will dig yourself into a deeper hole as you are guaranteed to end up getting more invested in the girl you are trying to get over when you should be doing the exact opposite.
3. Don’t try to “win her over”
Attraction is not a choice. You can’t force or convince someone into being attracted to you. If she rejected you or made it clear that she’s not interested in a relationship with you then there’s nothing you can do about it.
Most men falsely believe that proving their undying devotion to a girl will win her over. Nothing could be further from the truth. This will only drive her away from you. If your attention is freely available without any effort on her part then she will not value it.
Don’t keep getting invested in her. We are hardwired to expect a return on our investment. If you spent countless hours thinking about her, made elaborate plans to get her to like you, and went out of your way to spend more time with her then you are invested in her. This is part of the reason why it’s becoming harder and harder to stop thinking about her.
Stop chasing her. If she’s your friend then end your friendship with her as you clearly don’t view her as a friend. Most men rationalize staying friends with the girl by saying “I don’t want to lose a good friend”. Deep in your heart, you know that this is a lie. She’s not your friend and you know it.
As difficult as it may be, you must cut your losses off and move on. Further investments will only make it harder for you to get her out of your mind.
Additionally, listening to love songs or watching romantic movies when fantasizing about her are investments too. It’s a good idea to stop listening to music or watching movies that remind you of her.
Also, drinking while thinking about her counts as an investment too. If you are going to drink then drink for fun, not to feel sorry for yourself.
4. Don’t put her on a pedestal
She is not special and soulmates don’t exist. It’s just a Hollywood/Disney fantasy that doesn’t play out in real life. Do you really believe that you found a special girl among the 3,5 billion women living on the planet? Can you see how unlikely that is? There are hundreds of thousands of similar or even better women than her.
Women are hypergamous so putting them on a pedestal is counterproductive. Putting her on a pedestal never works because a woman can only be attracted to a man when his perceived value exceeds her value. The notion that women are infallible angels who deserve to be put on a pedestal harms modern men in irreparable ways. Men falsely believe that making her feel special is the way into her heart and scratch their heads in disbelief when bad boys get away with treating her like shit. Look, every woman in the world already thinks she is special. There’s no point in making her feel more special when she’s already grossly overrating her “specialness”.
A woman wants to look up to her man. Putting her on a pedestal thoroughly and completely defeats the purpose of attracting her because she isn’t hardwired to be attracted to a man that is below her. When you put her up on a pedestal, she will see you like a dog salivating for her approval.
Improve your worth as a man so that women can look up to you. Be the prize she wants to win over, not a doormat that she will happily walk over.
5. Do learn the truth about women
The truth about women is completely the opposite of what society and the mainstream media want you to believe.
Wrong beliefs lead to wrong actions. Men buy into the romantic lies they were told, act according to their false beliefs, and end up getting bitter, frustrated, and lonely.
Here are a few lies about women:
- Women are the prize. –> (The truth: Relationships only work when a woman sees her man as the prize)
- Women aren’t attracted to muscles. –> (The truth: Women drool for muscular men)
- Women are attracted to nice guys. –> (The truth: Women aren’t dumb. They know that the nice guy ploy is just manipulation)
- Being yourself is the best way to attract women. –> (The truth: Women are born men are made)
- Women hate selfish men. –> (The truth: Women love selfish men because selfishness is a strength, not a weakness. Women love strong, masculine men.)
- Looks don’t matter. –> (The truth: Women love a man who is in shape and who can dress)
- Money doesn’t matter. –> (The truth: Money is the scorecard of your achievements. Women love winners.)
- Women are infallible, innocent angels. –> (The truth: Women are people)
These blatant lies play an important role in rendering men slaves to women. If you believe any of the lies above, stop it now.
6. Do have options
Lack of options is one of the most common reasons for developing oneitis.
Obviously, being a man with a plethora of romantic options is tough but it’s achievable through genuine self-improvement. If a woman is ugly or old, she doesn’t have much to do to increase her attractiveness to men but a man has a wider array of ways to increase his attractiveness to women, regardless of his age or genetics.
Here is a list of things you can do to increase your attractiveness to women:
- Making money
- Getting in great shape
- Building muscle
- Traveling
- Dressing well
- Improving your social skills
- Increasing your confidence
All men can do all of these. You have no excuse. Make yourself more attractive to women and your romantic options will skyrocket.
7. Do meet new women and grow a thick skin against rejection
The cookie-cutter advice to stop thinking about a woman is to go have sex with 10 other women. This is bad advice because it overlooks a man’s need for pair bonding with a woman. Men don’t only want sex from women. Sex only lasts for a couple of minutes (or hours if you are a stallion) but the majority of men want to connect with a woman on a deeper level. They want a companion, not a sex machine.
The problem is that the Disney type of romance isn’t the answer to their pair bonding needs. The Disney type of romance pedestalizes women which completely reverses the natural relationship dynamic between a man and a woman. For a healthy relationship, the man should be better than his woman or at least his woman should wholeheartedly believe that this is the case.
The ability to meet new women is not only a great way to stop thinking about a particular girl but it will also prevent you from falling into the same trap with another girl in the future.
In addition to curing oneitis, meeting new women will accomplish 3 more things:
- You will greatly improve your chances of finding a woman you can connect and pair-bond with.
- You will develop valuable social skills.
- You will develop a thick skin against rejection.
Developing a thick skin against rejection will come in extremely handy for your future relationships with women. As we discussed earlier, fear of rejection is one of the most common causes of oneitis. Men fear rejection because their fragile egos won’t be able to deal with the sting of rejection. Fragility is never favorable for a man. You must be anti-fragile.
Being able to handle rejection is anti-fragile because the upsides to rejection are unlimited while the downsides are negligible. Go out and approach women in public settings. You will inevitably face a lot of rejections. Your investment will be small though. It will only take a few minutes to say hi to a woman, small-chat her for a while, and ask for her number or ask her out on a date. If you get rejected then you simply move on to the next woman you fancy. The upsides are that you will improve your social skills, you will see that you don’t die in the face of rejection, and you will get mentally stronger. As a bonus, you might sleep with a woman or two in the process. After a while, rejections will start to bother you less and your chances of finding a great woman for a healthy relationship will skyrocket.
3,5 years ago, I moved to a new city. I decided to find a great girlfriend and focus on my business instead of chasing girls all the time. I started approaching some of the attractive girls I encountered in public settings. In the span of 2 weeks, I approached approximately 40 girls and I got rejected by 33 of them. I went out on dates with 7 girls, 6 of which didn’t lead to a relationship. Finally, we hit it off with the 7th girl. She has been my girlfriend for the last 3,5 years and we are still going strong. As you can see, rejections didn’t kill me. Instead, I got a great girlfriend who has been an absolute delight to have a relationship with for 3,5 years. As a bonus, I had sex with 4 of the other girls I went out on dates with.
Instead of waiting like a dog to be thrown a bone, go out and hunt like a lion to get the lion’s share.
8. Do get physically strong
Henry Rollins said “I have never met a truly strong person who didn’t have self-respect” and my personal experience confirms this.
One of the reasons why a man can’t stop thinking about a particular girl is low self-esteem. Building muscle and getting physically strong is one of the fastest ways to improve your confidence. A couple of months of strength training is capable of making you brutally strong if you know what you are doing.
Also, being muscular is going to make you more attractive to women which will work to increase your romantic options. This will help you further to cure the problem of oneitis once and for all.
9. Don’t quit your job or studies because of her
Quitting your job or school for a girl is dumb because the reason why you can’t stop thinking about her is not her. It’s you.
Since you can’t run away from yourself, there’s no point in quitting your job or studies. Unless you change your ways, the same situation is bound to repeat itself with another girl at another workplace or school.
10. Do learn to be happy in your own skin
At the end of the day, outsourcing your happiness to other people is always guaranteed to result in frustration, be it a girl, a friend, or even your family.
True happiness is the happiness you feel inside your own skin. It’s not even about reaching your goals in life but working on your goals and getting better every day to accomplish them.
Never make women a priority in your life. They are great when they are co-pilots in your journey to excellence but they become a drag when you place them in the center of your life.
Be sure to read:
- How to Be a Superior Man, Chapter 2: What Makes A Man A Superior Man
- How to Stop Being Needy
- How to Overcome the Fear of Rejection
- 21 Ways to Stop Being an Effeminate Modern Man and Be More Masculine
- How to Get Over a Girl