When was the last time a song made you think of that time you experienced unrequited love? You know the one that you were head over heels about and they barely noticed you. The one that you spent sleepless nights crying over asking yourself why?
Why doesn’t she love me as I love her? Can’t he see that I am the one for him? Why am I not good enough for them? The list of questions wondering why may go on and on.
For me, that song is Wicked Game by Chris Isaak. Every time I hear that song, I can’t help but think about the time I experienced unrequited love.
What is unrequited love?
Unrequited love is experienced when you love someone, and they do not love you back. In other words, it’s one-sided love. Unrequited love can be painful in the sense that you may be giving your all to that one special individual and they do not reciprocate. If they do reciprocate it is always just enough to keep you hanging on. Never enough in comparison to what you have put on the table. When you experience unrequited love from someone, that individual does not want to open themselves up to love you.
Most of us have experienced unrequited love at least once in our lifetime. However, many times we don’t realize it’s unrequited until it’s too late to save ourselves from the emotional pain it will cause us.
Honestly, this is what occurred to me. I fell madly in love with someone who didn’t love me back like I wanted him to or thought that he would. We interacted often enough for me to believe that he had feelings for me.
However, each time I brought up my feelings he would run away and leave me hanging just to return a few weeks later as if nothing ever happened. What did I do in this circumstance you ask? Nothing. I continued to try and change his feelings towards me because at that time I loved him unconditionally.
What is unconditional love?
Unconditional love occurs when we love someone and expect nothing in return. We love simply just because we want to. Our love is given to this person with no strings attached. We love because this person has made an impression on our hearts and mind. For many of us, unconditional love means we love them even when they don’t love us back.
You might be wondering why am I bringing up unconditional love when discussing unrequited love. I brought this up because, in my opinion, unconditional love is on the other side of unrequited love.
As humans, it seems we always desire what we cannot have the most. This often happens with unrequited love. We seem to become crazy about that one person that is kind of very nonchalant about us.
It’s the person that doesn’t call us back right away, leaves our text on read, or maybe never initiates contact first that has us checking our phone consistently or sending serial texts that make us look like a stalker.
At times, to make matters even more difficult on ourselves, we provide this individual with our unconditional love in hopes that this will change their mind and they will begin to love us back (hopefully) unconditionally. Often, this doesn’t work and just leaves us confused still wondering why doesn’t this person love us the way we love them.
It often becomes a vicious cycle, round and round we go like a dog chasing its tail. When this occurred to me, I often wondered does this person know what they are doing to me. Why doesn’t he realize that his behavior toward me is so flaky? Could he be behaving like this on purpose?
Should we run from unrequited love?
The decision one makes about how to handle unrequited love is a very personal and individual decision. Since we are all unique how we deal with unrequited love will vary from person to person.
It may be better for some emotionally to remove the person that doesn’t love them back from their life in totality. This way they are not dealing with the negative thoughts they may have whenever they wonder about that unrequited love.
As for me, I was able to accept unrequited love and the person attached to it. I have learned throughout the years that I enjoy being in love with another regardless of whether they love me back or not.
This may seem dangerous to you however, to me it was merely making a mental note to myself reminding me that I am not to expect anything in return for my feelings. This allowed me to let my feelings run wild while not getting hurt by the other person’s actions or non-actions.
I share this about myself because it is too often that we do not allow ourselves to experience the gift of loving someone else since we are looking for what they will give us in return.
Love should be serving, kind, and unconditional. Therefore, what better way to prove we can love than by giving it to someone with no strings attached? That’s just my spin on love.
How to move on from unrequited love
So, he/she/they don’t love you back. Who cares? It’s not the end of your world. You will be happy without them.
Now for those of you who are not interested in the experience of unrequited love and want to move on from it, continue reading.
Here are 3 steps you can take to move past the feelings you have for them.
Make a decision or choice
Decide what you are willing or not willing to accept from them and move on. I know when it comes to unrequited love or many decisions about love, this is easier said than done. However, it must be done in order to move on.
If you are not willing to accept breadcrumbs, then make that decision and stop accepting breadcrumbs. Now you must realize and accept that this means you may have to eliminate this individual from your life once and for all. Depending on the person, this may not be forever, but it’s the only way to move on from that unrequited love.
Find someone else to love
How does that saying go, there is plenty of fish in the sea. I believe that to be so correct in this situation. A friend of mine put it this way “people are like the bus, miss one and another comes along in about 15 minutes”. I found this to be true and kind of profound, in an I don’t need you sort of way.
I say this to say, don’t sit at home concerned about that person that doesn’t love you back. If they are not giving you what you desire or need someone else will. You should consider it their loss. Here you are a person willing to love them just as they are, and they are not willing to love you back. Fuck them! The next person will be even better for you.
Just remember this, while you are pining for someone that doesn’t want you, there is someone out there pining for you. You just have to take the blinders off your eyes and allow yourself to accept.
Hang out with friends
So maybe you are not ready to find someone else to love. You are more of the type that prefers to get over one person before moving to the next. That’s ok too.
Instead of looking for a new love to hang out with, just hang out with all your old buddies. I am sure they have missed you since you have been dedicating a lot of your time to your crush.
Scroll through the contacts in your phone and pick someone you haven’t heard from in a while and call or text them. Invite them to do something fun, either something you both enjoyed together before or something totally new and exciting.
One idea I do suggest in this situation is when hanging out with that buddy, try and avoid talking about your crush. Although I am sure that your friend will be all ears, it’s not going to be easy to move on from them if you are constantly talking about them. Plus, this time is about you catching up with your good friend.
It will get better
I know it is tough when you experience unrequited love. It is difficult to see when you are right in the middle of it all, but it will get better. Try one or all of these 3 steps to help you move on from the unrequited love.
Remember, there is nothing wrong with you, me, or them even when they don’t love us back. Sometimes, it just works out that way.
If you are currently in this situation I wish you the best of luck with whatever steps you decide to take for yourself. Thank you for stopping by my page and I hope that my words have been of some benefit to you. Please do not hesitate to leave your thoughts, comments, and email address.
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