Unrequited Love
Barry Nirmal
What is the best cure for this condition? Tennov (1979) has suggested that the only cure for being in love is to get indisputable evidence that the target of one's love is not interested.[1]
It has been seen that many people who experience unrequited love get inspired to engage in literary pursuits. Sadly, some become alcoholics or criminals. This is why a common advice to the rejected is to pursue travel and teetotalism. By changing one's day to day environment and scenery, travel helps in getting one's mind off the target of unrequited love. (Remember, out of sight, out of mind.)
This author's best advice to the one who is suffering from unrequited love is to destroy all e-mails, messages, letters, photos, images and signs that remind him or her of the rejecter and to stop visiting the place or places where one used to see the beloved.
Here is a quote from Elle Newmark.
"...unrequited love does not die; it's only beaten down to a secret place where it hides, curled and wounded. For some unfortunates, it turns bitter and mean, and those who come after pay the price for the hurt done by the one who came before." [2]
He is correct in saying that some people become bitter and mean after encountering unrequited love and they take their anger and frustration out on their next lover. This should not happen but it is a sad reality of life.
Here is another quote, this time from Carson McCullers.
"It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved. The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain."
Benson Bruno has the following to say:
"Unrequited love is the only possible way to give yourself to another without being held in indentured servitude."
How true! Love that is not unrequited tends to entrap us, to keep us in bondage and many times it ends in separation or divorce. But unrequited love never ends simply because it never had a chance to start.
Now let us see what Sarah Dessen has to say.
"I have to admit, an unrequited love is so much better than a real one. I mean, it's perfect... As long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential." [3]
Proust is supportive of Sarah Dessen when he claims that 'the only successful (sustainable) love is unrequited love'. [4]
Now many times we get ideas including those on unrequited love from fiction and we take them as true. But some people view this with suspicion saying that fiction after all is all imagination and not based on facts. But Clark Zlotchew has this to say:
"Fiction has been maligned for centuries as being "false," "untrue," yet good fiction provides more truth about the world, about life, and even about the reader, than can be found in non-fiction."
Criss Jami has the following to say about love.
"Love is as simple as the absence of self given to another. God, when invited, fills the void of any unrequited love; hence loving is how one is drawn closer to God no matter its most horrific repercussions."
Many people become dejected and disheartened after their beloved rejects them. They become sad and withdrawn. Such people should pay close attention to the following quotation from Louisa May Alcott.
"Love Jo all your days, if you choose, but don't let it spoil you, for it’s wicked to throw away so many good gifts because you can't have the one you want." [5]
The famous Roman writer, Ovid in his Remedia Amoris, offers powerful advice on how to overcome inappropriate or unrequited love. The solutions offered include travel, teetotalism, bucolic pursuits, and avoidance of love poets. [6]
Here is interesting thought on the fate of the rejecter and the rejected.
The role of the rejecter will often force them to 'feel morally repugnant and guilty'; and whereas the unrequited lover may always retain some hope, 'the rejecter’s potential outcomes are nearly all bad'. [7]
References
(1) R. F. Baumeister/S. R. Wotman, Breaking Hearts (1994) p. 150
(2) Elle Newmark from The Book of Unholy Mischief
(3) Sarah Dessen, The Truth about Forever
(4) Pippin, p. 326
(5) Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
(6) http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/ovid/lboo/lboo61.htm
(7) B. H. Spitzberg/W. R. Cupach, The Dark Side of Close Relationships (1998) p. 251
[ This article is published as a courtesy for a valued member. -Ed ]
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