Not a rare thing, really. It's a human issue, regardless of age or gender.

People can definitely get attracted to the idea of a person that lives in their heads. They fall for a fantasy, often nurturing it with daydream. That's what a 'crush' is.

Reality hits when you see them as a real person with nuanced emotions, deep personal history, and a rich inner world. The reality of a person clashes with the fantasy of them.

Often that's a good thing. People get relationship maturity that way. They grow their skills of empathy, patience, compassion. The fantasy fades for a beautiful tapestry. Even if your relationship ends, you can respect each other.

Sometimes it's an inconvenient truth. The reality of a person isn't what you want, and the fantasy of them withers in the face of it. You can even bitterly resent them for falling short of your daydreams, robbing you of their comfort.

As strange as it sounds, it is a blessing for it to happen so quickly. For many, it's something they awake to in middle age. Feeling encroaching mortality, they realise that they settled in a life that was convenient, with a partner that was attainable, rather than either being truly satisfying.

So they sabotage it, flee it, resent it, or all the above. We call it the 'mid-life crisis'.

This sucks and feels awful, but of the many ways this could've gone? This was actually one of the better ones.