How can I move on from a guy I never dated? What would u say when I have always felt like a connection with a man 34 years older than me?

[Anonymous]

He has been my neighbour my entire life. For context, he is a popular celebrity (this sounds like Wattpad I know). I have grown up watching all his career milestones from a distance and admiring him. We have always been so similar. He likes to draw, I like to draw, he loves to read history, I love to read history, to summarize we both have been to a weird level of similarity been always passsionate about the same things. Completing each other's sentences and often saying the same very specific things. We end up buying the same books always unknowingly. We have same set of beliefs & values. He welcomes me into his huge library & we discuss all kinds of things for hours. He teaches me new drawing techniques and helps me get better at art. I never realised how much attracted I was towards him until recently. But, the issue is this man even though a celebrity with millions of followers is a man with a wife, and children of my age! I never realised how he unknowingly became my standard for men. I realised that I look for HIM in other men. It's too difficult for me a teenage to swallow the fact that I can't be with him! I am just not able to find the kind of companionship I have with him with any other man. How can I get over this man?

HE IS NOT A PEDOPHILE. NEVER BEHAVED INAPPROPRIATELY WITH ME. HE HAS JUST BEEN ENCOURAGING OF MY INTERESTS & AMBITIONS.

[Anonymous]

You’ve become very infatuated with this man and very attached to the fantasy your teenage self has of being with him one day. You convinced yourself you’ll never find another man like him and I think that only makes it harder for you to let go. My advice is to accept what the situation is, and if you meet someone else then give him a fair chance without holding them to the impossible standard you created. They’ll never ever live up to it because they’ll never be him. It takes a long time to move on, even years, but it gets easier once you stop hanging on so tightly and focusing on the future instead.

[Anonymous]

You need to give guys a chance to be that guy. You never had any expectations on your neighbor that's why it was easy to seemingly fall in love with him over an extended period of time. Unless you are giving certain guys the same length of time and also treating them the same way, which you most assuredly are not. Then you can't expect to develop the same feelings.