Social Acceptance of Unrequited Love.
Unrequited love has existed in the society since time immemorial and has been a subject of uncountable stories, movies, songs and books. Some lovers find it easier to maintain platonic friendship with their loved ones for the fear of losing them if the actual feeling is revealed, as the object of unrequited love is often a close friend or acquaintance. This forms a comfortable ground for them to remain around their beloved, interact with them and even be a special, trusted friend. Moreover, there is always a chance of rejection and social embarrassment as the existing association often does not permit a romantic relationship.
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 am going to write in detail about the subject, but the most important thing to do is to know that you have been hurt and to take care of yourself, no matter what.
Like cocaine, love increases the levels of serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine in the body. Because dopamine is associated with pleasure and causes the brain to think about pleasurable moments, narcotic drugs like cocaine increase the brain’s levels of dopamine and cause addiction. This scientifically explains why unrequited lovers are addicted to the object of love.
When madly in love with someone and ready to go to any extent to be loved back by them, lovers end up doing things they wouldn’t otherwise dream about doing. Nothing truly matters where the object of love is concerned. In extreme cases, unrequited lovers may run into debts, leave their families, move overseas, quit a job, loot banks, or even resort to killing someone who looks or behaves like a potential barrier. At the point when the framework of aforementioned neurotransmitters in the unrequited lover’s brain destabilizes, in the early phases of love, their state of mind gets flimsy as well. So does their capacity to think rationally and make sensible decisions.
Unrequited love hurts. I know – that’s an understatement. People who are more capable of handling rejection are better social survivors than those who are not. Since it is important for humans to stand out enough to be noticed, individuals who let the pain of rejection in love affect them, find themselves fearing public eye and are less capable of being outstanding in most aspects of life. Rejection in unrequited love makes them scared of being socially outcast. This leads to the individual being depressed and not too confident in life. With lack of confidence, they in turn increase their chance for rejection in the future as well.
Being rejected in love makes us look down upon ourselves, and we start believing that there is something lacking in us. We start finding faults in ourselves, when we are already hurt and need support. While rejection is mostly a matter of choices and difference in lifestyles, we continue to torment ourselves over our shortcomings and make it even more difficult to overcome the pain of rejection.
You open your most vulnerable self to another person and, more often than not, you expect your feelings to be reciprocated by the object of your love. But it’s turns out to be wrong. So, to all lovelorn lovers in unrequited love out there, courage! You are not alone. It happens to almost everyone. You will soon recover from the damage it has caused to your heart and soul and find the ‘actual’ love of your life (or be found by him) when it’s your turn!
Rejection is incredibly painful. But there are emotions we need to feel before we learn lessons we need to learn – falling in love with the wrong person is one of them.
I hope my article helps you in understanding unrequited love better. Please leave your comments to share more experiences and i will add them in my future posts!