I want to get to know someone but I can't stop fantasizing

For the past month I have been crushing on this WWII reenactor/model/photographer/world traveler on deviantart and his blog/twitter and I have been leaving comments on his pictures, mostly just saying that I like them and that he is "a very handsome soldier", and he only replies to me when I ask him questions (I asked him about the color of his eyes, they are green and sooo beautiful) but now I am very nervous to want to start a conversation because I do not want to come off as stalkerish. I might just be paranoid because that is what happened with a boy in high school: I started following him and he got really mad and called me a stalker and a lot of drama happened...and I do not want that to happen again.

But the thing is...I can't stop fantasizing about him. He is now a character in my head like Emma who is imaginary but he is a real person and I fantasize about him as if he wasn't and I involve him in my daily rituals. I really want to get to know him as a real person, but I don't know if my fantasies will get in the way and I don't know how to start a conversation with him.

What should I do?

Is infatuation a pattern? My suggestion is to turn off the computer and to go out into the real world and meet people in person in order to develop interpersonal skills and to experience what it's like to get to know people in person and in real time. Granted, infatuation can still occur in real circumstances but it would be a step forward because you would be dealing with real people rather than people you only know from online and whose faces you have never really seen and voices you've never heard.

The guy in high school was someone I had classes with that I was following throughout high school and it was an obsession. I don't want that to happen again, and you think online it would be safer because who cares if they live hundreds of thousands of miles away but they are still a real person. =[

I haven't been in a relationship since my junior year, and im not out searching for a relationship. I like him, and I want to be friends with him, but I don't want my feelings for him to ruin the friendship.