Have you ever had a friend that ghosted you when they started dating someone new? If you were in that situation, would it bother you, or would you understand? An even better question, and the real question in this story is whether or not that obsessiveness with a new love interest could be described as hyperfixation.

Two friends disagree about this issue. Keep reading to find out their differing perspectives.

AITA for calling out my friends obsessive tendencies?

Okay so I have this friend, for the sake of his privacy I’m going to call him Carl.

For a little bit of background Carl is neurodivergent and I met him online about 6 years ago. We met in person 4 years ago and visit each other at least twice a year.

Well throughout our friendship there has been an on and off conflict where everytime he meets someone he has the intention of dating, he completely ghosts half his friends, never calls, never responds to calls, takes DAYS to text back, and will ALWAYS be on call with said romantic interest. (9 times out of 10 they are people he has met on the internet.)

I’m not surprised his friend was offended.

Well today I sent him a reel on instagram that wasn’t supposed to really be offensive, I could have seemed passive aggressive in the message I sent with it but the video was like “that one friend when they get into a relationship” and it’s a joke about the ghosting.

My message that I sent with it said “sorry boo but it’s true lol”.

He took offense to this.

They started arguing about word usage.

He made the claim that he “hyper fixates” on people he likes, only wants to talk to them, talk about them, and think about them.

I felt like using the term “hyperfixate” on a person felt just wrong and it felt worse later in our argument, I feel like a better term would have been emotional/anxious attachment, obsessive attachment, or limerence.

Well I explained that that’s unhealthy and a habit he should consider working on breaking because it’s affecting his friendships, and told him that he can break the habit…

But he just snapped back with “I can’t just avoid a hyperfixation” and then “If it was a video game and I wasn’t talking to nobody because I was busy with that would you say the same thing? No you wouldn’t.”

He doesn’t agree that it’s the same thing.

Comparing a video game hyperfixation to a hyperfixation on a romantic partner just felt almost dehumanizing…?

I called him out on it and he just responded with “I’m not doing this right now.”

From my thought process as someone who is also neurodivergent, a hyperfixation is like an intense interest that comes and goes, some are more prolonged then others but usually they end at some point…so to call a person a hyperfixation just makes me feel like the feelings for that person will fade and will hurt everyone involved.

But he doesn’t want to talk to me because I called him out on that..AITA?

I think the point of sending the text was to call out his friend on something he needs to be aware of and try to work on, but the friend didn’t find it funny. I think they should just drop it, or OP could offer a “sorry I offended you” apology, and they can move on.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person finds obsessive behavior in a relationship creepy.

Another person thinks hyperfixation could be the correct word to describe the issue.

This is a good point!

Just let it go!

It’s not worth arguing about.