Hmmm. Tough one. Anytime there is a substantial imbalance of attraction/commitment it has massive “ick” potential. Of course, the sane and rational thing to do is hide the imbalance, try to be as much yourself as possible, and see what grows from there. The drama situation with the bullets is really a complication, frankly, and gets in the way of the real question.
The real question being: Has he been dishonest? Or, at least, dishonest in a way that was anything other than sane and rational? Is it possible to believe that he has not been twisting himself in knots, and using what he knows about her to pretend to be her perfect match? She’d have to review their time together and see if there was a noticeable lack of discord or differences. Was the personality she’d come to know a mishmash of trivia tidbits about her own likes and dislikes? Or was he open and honest about disliking some of her likes, and vice versa?
Another question she has to ask is why she fell in love with him? Was it because he was a selfless, altruistic hero willing to take a bullet for a complete stranger? Does her love have a different, more substantial basis now? Or does her not having been a stranger change the basis of her admiration for him? Also, it seems it would have been fairly simple to have said, there in the hospital as she thanked him “Well, actually, I’ve been a fan of yours for a long time.” Why didn’t he?
That’s why I don’t like the bullet bit. What if they were hometown acquaintances, and he had followed her career, and loved her from afar? Does putting himself in the way of seeing her again make him a wimp? Should he have just written her a letter telling her how he felt? Or is it a respectful, sane and rational way to just see whether this dream could come to fruition?
I had something slightly similar happen to me. I wasn’t famous, and there was no gunman involved. But a buddy from work invited me to a boxing event where an old acquaintance “turned out to be” fighting. Yeah, he had gotten me there on purpose because he knew his friend has been crushing on me for years. I didn’t know any of this until after we started dating. He later admitted to planning the event to impress me when he realized his buddy knew me at work.
I wasn’t weirded out by it, but that’s at least partly because he admitted it basically as soon as it could have been appropriate to do so. That’s a tough call to make, and I could see someone waiting too long to say it, then feeling stuck like it was too late to be anything but creepy.
The relationship was passionate and exciting but ultimately didn’t work for unrelated reasons. I always say though, of all the mistakes I’ve ever made, he was my absolute favorite.
I see the Spain bit as a positive there. Going to a place near her home and inserting himself in her daily routine would leave an everlasting creep shadow if things didn’t work out. Finding a way to “run into her” someplace away from her home is less creepy IMHO.
When my Grandfather died I went into his bedroom and checked out the drawers, closet etc. A friend had advised me to do so, in case there was pron in there; it would only hurt my Grandmother to find it, and possibly ruin her memories. (She snored, they slept in different rooms.) All I found were a stack of photos of my Grandmother in various bathing suits and dresses through the years. He loved that woman, and she was all he wanted to think about.
Creepy for me? Well, yeah, that’s my Grandma. But beautiful in its way, and so could Michaels feelings have been. Would you be less creeped out if he had a bunch of downloaded playboy bunnies on there?
As for the fapping, yeah, it’s an occupational hazard of being a woman. I don’t care who she is, or what she looks like, every woman has worked, ridden the bus, or bought coffee from someone who has fapped to her image at one point or another. If she’s a famous model, she has to know that the number of those increases in direct proportion to her fame and attractiveness. It’s one of those things that creeps you out for a while when you first realize it. Then you come to the realization that this is why Og invented privacy. Its only going to bother you if you are thinking about things that are none of your business.