Unrequited love. True love or no love at all?

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I think that unrequited love is absolutely a form of love...and not always an obsession. Just because it is one sided doesn't make it damaging.

My feelings are my own, if I love somebody it is because of how I feel and has no bearing on how the other person feels about me. I don't need his/her love to validate my love, instead I can simply enjoy the feeling just because it gives me pleasure. To me 'unrequited' could mean the other person has no knowledge of my love, or has brushed me off in some way. Either way it doesn't change how I feel.

Depends. Do you mean the "in love with" feeling, or the intellectual decision to desire whatever is best for someone?

It also depends on what you mean by true love. I don't see how the unrequited part factors in, though; I don't see how the nature of one's love can be dependent on the subject's reaction to it.

I had so many unrequited loves so I think I can say almost without a doubt that...

romantic love and sexual attraction is a physico-chemical phenomena in the body, probably in the brain but I could be wrong though. I think science supports me on this though. With that being said I think that love doesn't have to be mutual in order for these kind of nonmutual emotions to be any less real. It's because they are real and are in the body.

so.... according to many people in the thread.... love is the same to them whether it was one-sided or two-sided?

my experience has been different. to me it seems quite different when feelings are returned. it's like the difference between raw eggs & sugar... and a meringue.

i've never been sure what true love was or whether i'd experienced it. So about a year ago i asked my mate's parents (who are clearly still happy together) and he said (the dad): 'it's when you want to be around that person all the time and you don't ever want to be apart.' this is interesting. in order for this scenario to be practical it would require the relationship to be a two-way street to some extent

Yeah, I'll admit it for the first time, here at Wrong Planet: I'm in love with someone. He's been my best friend and we used to be very close and spent a ton of time together, but the feelings are not mutual. I have to admit, unrequited love is the worst thing I have ever felt. I've been in love before and the feelings were returned; I was so elated. But, this time, being in love has left me depressed and anxious. Back when I merely "liked" him, last semester, I admitted my feelings to him, and he said for him, the feelings were just not there. Summer went by and when we saw each other at school again, he seemed really happy to see me. We spent a lot of time together for about the first week and a half of school and then he started distancing himself from me. That was around the time that I realized that I loved him. I mean, I cared too much about how he felt about me. The L-bomb (the word "love") kept popping up in my head when I thought about him. I wanted to tell him that these feelings I was having were getting more serious, but I did not want to make him uncomfortable and I did not want to further push him away from me. So, I've just been sitting here stressing over the way he has been treating me.

So, yeah, I definitely think that I am in love with this guy. I have the feelings. They are real for me and I care deeply for him. It is true that mutual love is a better, fuller experience, but my feelings are still legitimate.

I always have a crush/ unrequited love for somebody. The person changes every few years, but the feelings still seem the same.

I tend to develop the feelings for the person before I get to know them. Once I get to know them better (not romantically) they seem to be an ok choice but I cannot work out why I chose them over other people.

I find that the "fantasy" version of them inside my head becomes different from the real life version. When meeting them it makes me feel rejected and worthless because I am unable to communicate my feelings to them. After I haven't met the person for a while (after a while my mind will find a new target) it is a bit less emotionally draining as I only have the fantasy version, without the rejection.

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In a way I think of unrequited love as "love gone wrong". Whereas other forms of love (such as family, romantic and friendship) have advantages to both giver and receiver, unrequited love does not. If it only exists, possibly as an obsession, within one persons mind then it can be destructive, without benefiting its target.

I'm the same. Except i had a massive break after i got involved with a perfectly nice girl that was the object of a crush. Things worked out really well but she was nt and she had social urgings that i didn't share or understand. She cared so much about what other people thought of her, was always expecting public displays of affection. She used to annoy me when she'd make out that the reason i didn't like public displays of affection was because i was ashamed of her but the real truth was that i was ashamed of myself. I used to worry that other people would see me with her and wonder why she was seeing someone like me. God, i don't even think it ever occurred to me to tell her that, i sorta expected her to know somehow i guess. Which i suppose sums up why i ended it, i had to explain a lot of what i am and i don't like that, i want someone that understands how i am because they're like that too.




Yeah, i agree, it's extremely destructive. You just need to do whatever u need to do to get over it, it's like an illness if you're getting nothing out of it.

I think there are plenty of ways to get over someone but it all depends on how deeply you felt. Personally i'd say the quickest and least painful way is probably telling the person and getting an answer one way or the other, but im famous for not following my own good advice so you'd probably never catch me doing that. Probably seperating yourself from that person is best, if you can manage that. Hmm, i guess my advice would be best in the case where you can't seperate yourself from them socially, it'd become too big of a problem otherwise, too distracting.

That sucks. I know exactly how you feel, right down to the contrast between the two types of love and the way it just gets worse.

Surely him saying it wasn't going to work helped though, peoples opinions in that regard don't really change so it'd be pointless to hold on. For me it's like the way having a ticking clock in my room would annoy me only if it was ticking and i could do something about it, if it was something i couldn't get at i'd put it out of my mind. If it's never going to be and it's out of your hands it's time to get over it.

I have found that when this has happened in the past I have a period where the relationship exists as a fantasy, then my target switches to somebody else.

I sortof work like that but to replace my fantasy takes a lot more than that. For me we're talking 1 crush age 10-13, 1 crush age 14-17, 1 crush that turned into a relationship from 17-20(when she told me that she liked me)and then involved with that girl until 23, then nothing at all for 8 years. I think if i can just get rid of my latest one i'll probably be able to rid myself of the whole silly cycle for good, it was interesting when i was younger but i don't think i can take it anymore, it's just too debilitating. For one it stops me getting on with my life, i can't keep rejecting perfectly good girls just because they aren't my crush.

It wasn't so much of a problem for me when i was younger, i can't say i've been that interested in girls, those crushes helped me to procrastinate about the whole thing. Not now though, the crush i currently have feels like it's really holding me back, those previous crushes were just colds and this ones the plague(through being so perfect basically, how i can i look elsewhere when i judge everyone else by the standards she sets?). It's time i rid myself of the whole sorry episode i think, i don't see any miracles coming my way.

You got that right!

it seems to me that much of what passes for "love" down here in this hellworld, is really closer to the fine madness of limerance or infatuation.

Agreed, I don't think I'll ever know what it's like to be loved back.

that depends of what type of "love" one expects "back." or how one sees love. love can be as subtle as how a mother sacrifices for her children.

Different flavours of love. Requited is a rush, unrequited not so much. Ditto was-once-requited-but-isn't-anymore.