Alan's feelings towards Barbara

I saw this for the first time last night, and I can't get it out of my head! I wondered why Alan did all those things for Barbara & what his true feelings/intentions were. From what I read here, people either say he loved her, or he was simply voyeuristic. I think both are somewhat true, but this is the conclusion I came to:

I think he had a love/hate for Barbara - he loved her, but not in a sweet reciprocated love; more of just an obsessive fascination w/ her. He knew her name before she ever met him, and even knew where she lived w/o her telling him. I think he couldn't help feeling attracted to her, but at the same time perhaps he despised her a little bit too. I don't think Alan had many friends, & being a genius at school, while a gift, can also be a curse, socially; not to mention he doesn't seem to have any real family around since he just stays at people's houses w/o really living anywhere. He felt helplessly attracted to Barbara, but he knew she wasn't the type of girl that would go for him. Even so, it was like she had a power over him by fascinating him. So he becomes her friend by granting whatever her heart desires, knowing that is the only way he could ever be near her and he was somewhat content just to watch her up close & personal. I got the impression, that although he wanted to grant her ever whim, he seems to know that Barbara doesn't even know what's good for her - kind've a "careful what you wish for". But he still gives her everything she wants, even though none of it really works out for the better for her; and I think he liked that just as much - a sort of punnishment for not wanting him. He couldn't risk the rejection of asking her to be anything more than his friend, b/c that rejection would ruin his fantasies of her. Also, the theme song, they sing about being a duck in a pond & how he can't ever get him a swan which also supports the way Alan probably felt about Barbara.

The scene where he's rolling around w/ her in the sand, he doesn't seem too pleased that here comes Bob to take her attention away, he keeps barging into Barbara & Bob's bedroom on their honeymoon, and there's another scene where he looks longingly at Barbara as he touches her arm when she tells him that Bob struck her - there seems to be an attraction there, which makes me think he wanted her but knew he couldn't really have her. Then at the end of the movie when Barbara is becoming a star, he says something like "you poor bunny", as if knowing even that won't really make her happy. That's why I think he had a love/hatred for her, yet enjoyed being the one that could control her as if to spite the hold she held over him.

Sorry that's long-winded & I know it's only a movie; but few movies really stick w/ me, and this one did. Anyways, that's only my opinion and I'm sure everyone else interpruted things differently :)

"Are you going to your grave with unlived lives in your veins?" ~ The Good Girl