I have a habit (perhaps it’s obsessive) where I post a story to Instagram then I check if someone has watched it.  The person I am checking to see if he has watched it hasn’t watched a story of mine in months.  My thought about this is “He has moved on” and if he has watched it I’m telling myself “He still cares about me” because he has to go out of his way to search me on Instagram and watch it, as it doesn’t come up in his feed.

I have been learning about desire and I’m a bit confused because I have this desire to check if he has watched it and the desire is so strong it feels like I can’t stop.  It has been so long since he has watched any of my stories, so I haven’t been getting that dopamine hit reward because he hasn’t watched it, so there’s no pay off.  Why do I still have the desire to check?  I stopped posting stories for a couple of weeks to break this habit of checking but it has made no difference.  Thanks!