Am I a fantasist? A stalker? Is this just an obsession?

One minute it is summer – and I’ve met Alex – and the next it is cold and bleak. I am alone – it had been like a whirlwind. I am feeling bereft, abandoned, left out in the cold. I feel like Dorothy; I got caught up in a tornado but my world didn’t change like hers. I somehow got left behind when everybody else went to Oz. How did all this happen?

He keeps whizzing past me in his shiny Toyota pick-up truck. Admittedly he waves, but it is a fleeting glimpse of the man I love. Never has the Kate Bush song “Wuthering Heights” felt so poignant. I wish he would just let me in. I blame the book Ask and It is Given for that, one of the many self-help books I turned to, because the universe was obviously confused.

He’s everywhere I turn – I even know his number plate. It has a V, N, and O in it which makes me think of “vino”, not that he’s drinking anymore. He's in recovery.

But while I am trying to attract him like a magnet via the laws of the universe, it’s having the reverse effect. Am I trying too hard? It says on the back of the book the techniques are easy and the results are quick. So what is the problem? There’s no trouble-shooting page for when there’s a hitch. Perhaps I’m meant to “trick the universe” by imagining our happy union in the present tense so it believes it has already happened.

Yes! It is wonderful, I feel so happy. We have a dog and two children! But it hasn’t happened, I scream in frustration. Am I mad? It’s like we can only go so far before he gets side-tracked.

He’s reading How To Get Rich Quick and obsessed with becoming hugely successful. he sees himself as a high-flying property mogul, although it’s more high-class painting and decorating to start with. He’s must be doing alright: he’s swamped in £50 notes. They are falling out of his cupboard drawers and he has to push the safe door shut with his foot to try and contain the cash.

He is hard to pin down at the best of times but now he is so busy it is impossible. We had been hanging out with Simon for weeks – always on the brink of will-it-won’t it happen. Now his work is more of a threat to us than the boring girlfriend that he won’t leave. Is he just scared of love?

I’ve ditched my boyfriend and have nobody. A friend lends me a book called Facing Love Addiction, which I think is a bit dismissive considering I’ve just had my world blown apart by a chance meeting. But hang on …yes he is an avoidance addict – well, he’s just not there. Am I craving love with somebody not available? Am I a fantasist? A stalker? Is this just an obsession?

Perhaps the next book someone suggests I read is He’s Just Not That Into You. Never. I can’t help feeling that it's deeper than that. I couldn’t care less about the labels anyway. Even if we do have our issues, true love exists. I believe it.

But whenever I see him it is like a gun that never properly gets fired: I’m in a constant state of suspense. I’ve met the love of my life but he is too flighty to stop and smell the roses. I look out of my window on to the grey Harrow Road where I am living at the time – I sink into despair. I have to come up with a new plan – one that will work because I can’t go on like this.

I am jolted back into reality when I hear “mummmmmmy, where are you”.

Good question, I was just thinking about your daddy, I tell them, and how we first met. It’s quite a story.