No matter how much you love someone, you cannot make them love you.

If you don’t receive love from the ones who are meant to love you, you will never stop looking for it.  ~  Robert Goolrick

It’s worse than that.  No matter how much you like someone you cannot make them like you, and no matter how much you desire someone, you cannot make them desire you.  No matter what you do, no matter the money, time, effort, hope, prayer, and love you expend, no matter how many sleepless nights you suffer, you cannot change the way someone feels about you.

Often unrequited love is the desperate feeling of being hopelessly, completely, head over heels in love with and infatuated with someone, all the while knowing that your feelings will never reach their heart and will never be returned.  Unrequited love can exist when the object of your love is hardly even aware of your existence.  You may love someone and yet know you will never make love with them or wake up next to them in the morning.  You may even know that you will never get to spend time with the object of your love.  And yet, you will go on loving them forever, no matter the pain and heartache it causes.  You will go on loving even when you know they love another.

A person doesn’t know true hurt and suffering until they’ve felt the pain of falling in love with someone whose affections lie elsewhere.  ~  Rose Gordon

Unrequited love also exists within relationships, when one person may love the other deeply and tenderly, but the object of your affections just thinks you’re someone to hang out with when there is nothing better happening.  Unrequited love even exists inside marriage, when one partner truly, madly, deeply and unconditionally loves the other, who merely regards them as a convenience.

Sadly, unrequited love can sometimes turn into obsessive love, which is an extreme form of infatuation and does not allow for failure, imperfection, or rejection.  Obsessive love is a dangerous mental disorder which can lead to extreme behaviour, up to and including boiling the pet rabbit.  If you have ever flirted with a real bunny-boiler, then you will know exactly how bad obsessive love can become.

The difference between a dysfunction love and real, true love is reciprocity.  Does the object of your desire return your affections?  Or, are you doing all the work and throwing your love away, just like throwing a rock into a bottomless pit?  Ask yourself if the one you love is anything more than an empty vessel, are they someone who can and will return your love with their own, or are you just feeding money into a crooked slot machine in the vain hope of a jackpot?

Unrequited and obsessive love can be a masochistic addiction.  It hurts and it costs, but if you have it, you will wait around for the big payoff, no matter what.

The really bad news for someone who is going through the misery of unrequited love is that there will never be a big payoff.  You will never hit the jackpot, they will never return your love, and they will forget you in a New York second.  Whatever you have right now is as good as it’s ever going to get, and the chances are it will get worse ~ addictions always get worse over time, no matter what.  Some people are incapable of real love, that’s called Emotional Deprivation Disorder, and if you are unlucky enough to love someone suffering from that, you may as well pack your bags and go home.

It’s no good putting the object of your desire on a pedestal, and it’s no good thinking that you can change him or her.  No matter how much time, effort, money, love, and heartache you have invested, you will most likely have just thrown it all away.  It’s like feeding a slot machine in Las Vegas, where you will probably never see a penny of that money ever again, and deep down you know you have wasted everything.

Often those who suffer the agony of unrequited love and / or obsessive love have other mental problems ~  Drug addiction, Alcoholism, Borderline Personality Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or just plain Emotional Hunger.

Just like drug addiction or alcoholism, the only way out of the misery of unrequited love, or the sick dangers of an obsessive love, is to quit.

There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it.  ~  Shannon L. Alder

It’s much easier to write it than it is to do it, but if what you have is a relationship where you are giving a lot and getting little in return, then you have to walk away.  Walk away, don’t look back, and don’t try to keep in touch.  It’s going to hurt, but it’s like a bad tooth.  It will hurt a lot for a short while when you’re having it extracted, but that’s much better than living with months or years of dull misery.

~

these opinions are mine and mine alone

Jack Collier

jackcollier7@talktalk.net