Unrequited love: I love him, he loves me not

Unrequited love is bittersweet. Feelings of passion, promise, and affection are diluted with feelings of longing, rejection, and frustration. Your life is plunged into a cocktail of excitement and disappointment. You had been plodding along contentedly in your plain little world until you develop a crush on some oblivious character and suddenly, everything is brighter and louder, fun but scary. Kind of like a fun fair. Unfortunately, your crush doesn’t know you exist, doesn’t realise your lust for them, is currently attached to some other lucky so-and-so or, worst case scenario, knows you’d cart-wheel through hoops of fire to snog them and would prefer to forget that little tidbit of information.

How do you cure a serious dose of unrequited love?

1) Wear your heart on your sleeve

Better to know one way or the other, and sooner rather than later. Right? Tell him/her how you feel. Maybe they feel they same and you’ve just saved them the daunting task of opening up to you. Either, you’ll be cosying up on the couch with the object of your affection before you know it, or you’ll find out it’s a no-go area and give up.

Unless, deep down you know that this person will never live up to the leading star you’ve created in your (crazy) mind. He/she is so nice to you in your head, and a fantasy lover never doubts themselves, disagrees with you or farts in bed. And they definitely won’t resemble a bleary-eyed, cranky skunk in the mornings. In this case, tuck your heart under your cuff and enjoy the reverie.

When I was about 12, I knew a boy with movie star good looks. Every girl in the town was after him. I fancied him and I must have fancied my chances with him because I ordered my friend to tell him that I liked him. He never did anything about it. And that was enough. I had given it my best shot. So, I moved on to fantasising about other guys I had absolutely no chance of meeting let alone dating. Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves, Jordan Catalano, to mention but a few.

2) Milk it

Make the most of how alive you’re feeling right now. Colours are more vivid. Every song on the radio talks to you. The slightest glance from your amor is enough to spread warm tingles all over. You have all this love, passion, angst, and pain, and nowhere to send it. So, feed these intense emotions into song lyrics or poetry, run through the hills, take up kick boxing. Get out all that energy and turn it into something positive and creative. At 15, I wrote a poem about an unwitting hottie in my ninjitsu class, with the spectacularly surprising title “Unrequited Love”.

You can also milk it with your mates. Girls love discussing unrequited love. Get them to call over for some vino, Ben & Jerry’s and a good ol’ chinwag. They can empathise and offer advice or slate the dude if that’s what you’d prefer. If you’re a guy experiencing a nasty bout of unrequited love, you can also try get yer mates over with choccies and hankies. Alternatively, head down to the pub.

3) Wallow in it

Once in a while, it’s nice to be able to indulge in a bit of wallowing. Kind of like when orange juice stings the crack in your lip and you take another sip ‘coz you sorta liked it. In the case of unrequited love, you may not have even known the chap(ette) so your heart probably isn’t broken broken. Seen as it’s not totally devastating, you may simply enjoy lying in your dirty bath water for a bit longer than necessary. Hence why I played this song on repeat for about a week after a break-up when I was 16. 

4) Self-love

Sometimes, unrequited love is less about your fantasy partner and more about you. Sure you hardly know them. But you’re certain that if they knew the real you, they’d fall deeply in love with you. If only they knew how talented, sweet, funny, and generous you are. You post cool YouTube videos on your blog and update your status constantly with witty comments and inspiringly intelligent quotes just so that he will finally figure out that you’re the one he’s been searching for. Newsflash: this is a pointless exercise because he’s probably removed you from his Facebook news feed for taking up his homepage with irrelevant drivel.  I know, I know, you want to share your magnificent self with someone. But you’re aware of all these wonderful things about yourself. So why not love and enjoy yourself for a while? One day, you will share these things with someone else. Someone who values all you have to offer and who has a hell of a lot to offer you as well.

5) Don’t boil any bunnies

Seriously, don’t stalk the poor fecker. Don’t even engage in any of that modern-day, socially acceptable stalking. Checking his Facebook page several times a day is not healthy. Especially if you’re not even friends. And saving his profile picture onto your computer is just not cool. And please, don’t drive by his house every evening. Particularly, if his is the end house in a cul-de-sac.

We all want to be loved and appreciated. More than that, we want someone (other than ourselves) to notice (and adore) all those lovable and quirky things that make us who we are. This lovely clip sums it up. 

Observe all the best things about yourself. Write them down. And forget about needing someone else to notice how nice you are. You will always (and rightly so) be your own biggest fan.