Hi.

I'm posting here because I need to just say everything and I have already driven my friends crazy with my incessant need to talk about this to someone supportive.

I have a very very dear friend, a wonderful woman who I've known for about a year. She is a little older than me, married, and something of a spiritual example to me in her writings and her lifestyle. She is perhaps one of the most genuine and loving people I know. She lives quite a ways from me so we do not get to see each other often, but we were able to hang out together and with mutual friends for a few days last week and had a great time. At the end though it was very hard to say goodbye to her, because I've apparently fallen really hard for her. I love her as a friend and as a source of spiritual inspiration and comfort, but also I am in love with her now. I have never been infatuated with anyone like this - it is almost ridiculous how cliched the whole thing feels, but it is driving me around the bend still.

But she is completely, 100% unavailable. She is committed to her marriage and to loving all of her friends equally, and I know from her reactions to similar things happening with others that it would likely freak her out a great deal if I said anything. People fall for her constantly, it's like gravity. My friends and I call it "the N Effect" because it just happens to people around her. My friends tell me that generally after a year or so people get over it and can just be friends with her. But I don't have a year, right now it is interfering with my work, and I can't stop talking about her to everyone which just makes it worse. I need to know what to do to keep myself sane!

Please, anyone, if you have any advice, I'd be very grateful. Thanks.