Mutuality and Unrequited Love.
When you have a new friend, or you suddenly find your feelings for an old friend change in an inexplicable way, the new partner is happy to listen to you vent. You find yourself calling them for every small and big matter. To complain to them about everything; from your inability to fit into your favourite pair of jeans, to the annoying thing your significant other did and the rude, hygienically-challenged person who sat next to you on the subway and clipped their toenails during the morning commute.
When you are falling for a friend, you suddenly start appreciating the quirky side of your friend. Like their obsession with quality cosmetic products and their random distaste for chocolates. There is no room for jealousy between the two of you, just mutual appreciation, in the friendship. When you tell this friend about a success in your life, he or she is genuinely happy for and will celebrate with you.
As discussed before, it is alright to fall in love with about anyone in the world as long as you are able to handle the feeling and not make a fool of yourself. However, if this love is going to turn you to an unrequited lover, you’d better watch out! At the point when your feelings in a relationship are not shared, the outcome can be excruciating for both of you, particularly for the person who is more dedicated to the relationship. Unrequited love — the most common topic for novels and movies, is one of the worst situations to be in. Simply knowing that your relationship falls under this category is all that is needed to make you take some difficult decisions in life. Mostly, it is the decision to stay in the relationship that is important only to the unrequited lover, but at times, it is the decision to walk out.
Historically, in the Western tradition, love is characterized by a series of elevations, in which animalistic desire or base lust is superseded by a more intellectual conception of love which also is surpassed by what may be construed by a theological vision of love that transcends sensual attraction and mutuality. Thereafter, there have been supporters and detractors of this kind of love, as well as a host of alternative theories—including theory of true love reflecting what was known as ‘two bodies and one soul.’ Even today, we undeniably find love being discussed in songs, movies and novels—humorously or seriously. Love plays an enormous and unavoidable role in our uncountable cultures; it is a constant theme of maturing life and a vibrant theme for youth. Philosophically, since the time of the Ancient Greeks, the nature of love has been a mainstay in philosophy.
Learn to not blame yourself. All you have is ‘you’, so love yourself and let yourself make mistakes – you are not perfect, nobody is. There’s no doubt about it: unrequited love and lust are hard. Research has shown how different an experience it is (in terms of brain activity) compared to love that’s returned. Not that most of us need a scientist to tell them that: if you’ve loved and loved back, and another time loved and been left in the lurch, you know all too well what the difference is. You know how endings or break ups feel. And you may also know that moment in time when you decide it’s okay that you or they decided to leave the relationship. That it was okay to move on, to not always be there for the other person or to stop taking their calls so often or listening to their longing for you.
As romantic as it may sound to love someone with your heart and soul, even if they don’t love you back, it is not easy. It is really painful to long for someone who does not feel the same way about you. While there is not much we can do about how the other person feels, there certainly are a few things we can do to save ourselves the unbearable pain. See my post Ways to Handle Unrequited Love, where I have written in detail about the subject. However, the most important thing to do is to know that you have been hurt and to take care of yourself, no matter what.