Fade To Bleh

I'm a very obsessive person. I went on one date with this guy, and it was immediately apparent that he's emotionally unavailable and broken. I deleted his number but soon dug it back up. I texted, but he never responded. I know he's bad news, but I still think about him constantly. It's especially bad when I'm trying to go to sleep. How do I stop these intrusive thoughts?

--Besieged

It's like that spinning teacup ride, with Satan as the carny: "Wanna get off? Too bad!" You're doing your best to avoid thinking about the guy. Unfortunately, there's a problem with that. Research by psychologist Daniel Wegner on "the paradoxical effects of thought suppression" suggests our minds have something in common with a defiant 2-year-old, meaning that telling yourself not to think about something gets your mind doing exactly the opposite: thinking about that thing with a vengeance. This is just how the mind works. When you tell yourself not to think about something, it's an immediate fail. The mind sweeps around to monitor how well you're doing at not thinking about it, which of course involves thinking about whatever you're not supposed be thinking about. Helpfully, Wegner and his colleagues found a possible way to stem the flood of intrusive thoughts: distraction. This requires thinking of something positive and unrelated to the thoughts you're trying to suppress. Even a red Volkswagen -- the example they used in their experiment -- could do the job. What's more, psychologists Jens Forster and Nira Liberman found that you can keep your mind from constantly bouncing back to a thought if you shift your focus: admit that not thinking about it is hard. As I explain in "Unf*ckology," "Removing the need to patrol your thoughts ... removes the mental sticky note that tells you to keep going back into Thoughtland with a flashlight to see how well you're doing at it." Finally, because the mind cannot multitask, meaning think two thoughts at once, it might be helpful at bedtime to tire yourself out reading aloud or following a guided meditation on your phone: You're walking down a beach...you're looking out into the waves...and...um...oops! Just remind yourself that not thinking about something is hard and yank your mind back to Swami Doodah after you inevitably picture yourself holding the guy down and drowning him in the ocean. ... For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.