"I can't take my mind off of you...'til I find somebody new..."

I must be the queen of falling in love for absolutely no reason. The habit that I despise the most in myself is my ridiculous ability to become obsessed with absolutely anything and everything. It's okay when my obsession-of-the-month is a band or some emaciated rocker, or a really amazing book...it's just when this enchantment slips over into the category of boys that it gets sort of dangerous.
I'm seventeen and a girl, so liking new boys more often than I change my bedcovers seems to be the norm...but not the way that I do it. It isn't like I get a boyfriend that I can't stop talking about, or kiss a guy and then annoy my friends by constantly asking their advice on what I should do next...I can fall in love on the bus, sneaking glances at the art student sketching beside me, or with someone collecting for charity in the city who's sheer beauty makes me hand over far more cash than I'd intended to. It can be an old friend who've I've only just become attracted to, a boy at school I've never once spoken to, or just some random man who brushes past me in the street. But it's instantaneous. I fall asleep imagining myself in their arms...I stalk them on the internet if it happens to be someone who's name I know...I entice my friends to talk about them with me whenever possible. It drives my closest friends crazy, but when I try and keep it to myself it's even worse.
It used to be pretty shit because I'd never get with any of these guys, the obsessions would just peter out when I discovered that they didn't like me back, or moved on to the next poor guy. But lately, as I've gotten a bit older and a bit more independent, I've started to get off with more boys...men, even. Different ones...tacky but hilarious guys who flirt with me until I'm so flattered that I give in, artsy men who I fall immediately in love with, older guys who's maturity amazes me compared to the boys I'm surrounded with at school every day. So I kiss them, more than kiss them to various degrees given the situation...and then the next day, I'm always incredibly disappointed when nothing comes of it. When a relationship doesn't immediately blossom and they don't suggest that we run away together into the sunset. Even though I should know not to expect more most of the time, given the situations. But I can't help it.
Even the times when I swear to myself that I can be casual about it, resolve not to care, within two days time all I want to do is see him again even if, to him, I was just a drunken mistake that he's well on the way to forgetting. And yet, somehow, as much as I think I'm in love with them they're almost always erased by the next guy who shimmies up to me and steals my heart for the night. I'm blissfully happy, until I realise nothing longterm is going to happen with them and I become a women possessed.
All I want now is someone to like me back for a tangible period of time, except that I'd always be scared I like them too much, too soon. My feelings are never mild, always intense and almost frighteningly strong...well, frightening at least to the poor boy who just wants a feel up round the back of a bar while I begin to plan our life after we've driven off into the sunset in a souped-up Camaro...
This most recent obsession is most dangerous I think. He's older, in a relationship, and almost certainly not interested in me beyond the drunken kiss that I can't even really believe happened now. Until the next boy, he'll sit in the corner of my mind and my heart.
Moi
(title of this post is from 'The Blower's Daughter' by Damien Rice. Music obsession at the moment is 'Naked As We Came' by Iron & Wine which, no, is not as dirty as it sounds...at least to me...)