obsession vs love

here’s what i have to say on the matter

18.06.2026

i’m using the question of “can a fan ever date a celebrity?” to explore this topic because i feel like this is a good example of needing to differentiate obsession from love.

i guess this relates to the question of whether you can overcome the first impression of someone. but i was thinking about something more specific when i was debating a friend over this last week. “can a fan ever date a celebrity and it be true love and not obsession/admiration?”

i began wondering about this while scrolling on tumblr. there is a large amount of fangirls on that app. and there is no shame in the game, we are/were all a fan of someone at some point. but i saw someone say that they genuinely wanted to date someone that they had a fan page on. this is like that trend on tiktok where people joke (or maybe they aren’t joking) about marrying their husband, when their celebrity crush yells out “objection!” in the crowd then they leave their partner for that celebrity. and it made me think, if you were a fan of someone, can you ever genuinely love them?

i think too many people mistake obsession for love. because i’m not sure you will ever be able to truly love someone that you once admired because there will naturally be a matter of inequality in that relationship since if you are a fan of someone, you look up to them. and if you see them as superior, it will take vanity for you to believe that you are deserving of them. either way, i don’t think you can become an equal with someone if at some point you looked up to them and thought that they were better than you. therefore, i don’t believe you can truly love someone with the entirety of your heart if you see them as a superior because part of that will be a case of “idk if i wanna be them or be with them” and that confusion will naturally strain a relationship.

imagine you were relatively famous and someone had a fan page of you, maybe had posters of you on their walls or even wrote fanfics about you, but you came to like them and started dating them. then you realise soon enough that this is a matter obsession and admiration rather than love. i’m sure it would be underwhelming for them also. they saw you as a star. now you’re with them. that is not a bad thing about either of you, but it just shows that someone that was like the person of your “dreams” cannot ever live up to this big idea you have of them. it’s also kind of creepy. not in a shady way. it’s sort of like what happened in the great gatsby. when you feel like someone is so brilliant, you put them on a pedestal. but nobody walking this earth right now is god. we are all humans with imperfections. the concept of being a “star” is constructed. and therefore, once you bring someone you once looked up to your level, it could be weird. does that make sense? 

true love is built on mutual respect. not hyper-fixation. because true love requires a sense of independence for both individuals and freedom. but if you have fallen in love with the idea of someone, you cannot physically force them out of that idea because it is so set in stone. and it’s slightly unfair for the person who somewhat has to live up to those expectations. 

my friend argued against this and made a rather convincing point.

she said that you could fall in love with the idea of someone but that this idea could change. perhaps you were initially a fan of somebody, but when you discovered that they were different to what you expected, you could still fall in love with that person. which i do believe is possible. i just can’t shake the belief that this first conception you have of someone will always linger, alike first impressions. you will always expect what you’ve anticipated. and in the case of a celebrity, you have seen them as above you. and as a star. they are probably going to be a lot different to who you thought they were because people are normally very different to who you know them as when they are performing in front of cameras. not always though. 

so, will the relationship be healthy? i guess that’s the real question here. ego will always be attached in some way. either because the fan believes they are good enough for someone who they see/saw as superior to them, or for the star who wants someone to be obsessed with them.

i’m not sure a fan could date a celebrity simply because there is going to be a level of obsession and vanity involved which the relationship is built on. that first idea and conception of someone is always going to linger. 

it’s difficult (i say as i argue with myself about a topic i came up with and had the option to write about without any obligation). because i feel like to some extent, it is necessary to highly regard who you date and also set your own standards of what you believe you are deserving of. but idk. something about looking up to someone for ages and then finally dating them when you’ve constructed your opinion solely on an idea of them doesn’t sit right with me. but maybe i’m being a pessimist. idk.