ONE-SIDED LOVE ISN’T LOVE
Day 336 (Three-Hundred & Thirty-Six) of 365 days
One-sided love is not love. It’s torture. It’s waiting for something that might never happen. It’s looking at someone who doesn’t see you. It’s thinking about someone day and night while you probably never cross their mind. It’s looking at your phone hoping they’d text you or call you as they call someone else. It’s reaching out to them with so much fervour as they respond with indifference.
Loving someone is one of the most vulnerable positions in which you can be. You open your heart to another person and your best wish is for him or her to love you in return. Unfortunately, life is not a Nicholas Sparks movie; love isn’t always reciprocated, and it doesn’t always end in a happily ever after. Sometimes, love isn’t a feeling you force upon yourself; it just happens. When you start to spend more time with another human being, you expose yourself to whom he or she is — all the idiosyncrasies, past experiences, what makes him or her happy or sad, dreams and ambitions in life, flaws and the depths of his or her heart.
And you, in return, divulge your deepest secrets and desires. They know what it takes to make you laugh or feel special, and you build new memories together that make any torment of the past that much is easier to bear. It makes you feel hopeful, and before you know it, you’re in love. It is an incredibly vulnerable position because to me, loving someone entails giving away parts of yourself you lock up from the rest of the world.
One-sided love is not love. It’s a battlefield. You’re battling your emotions. You’re battling your feelings. You’re battling reality. You’re battling everything people are telling you and believing your fantasies. You’re battling your intuition. Your gut. Your logic. Your heart. It’s a battle you can’t win. A war you can’t stop. It’s losing over and over again. It’s surrendering to something that will eventually destroy you.
One-sided love is not love. It’s self-destruction. It’s questioning your self-worth every night. It’s constantly wondering why you’re not enough, why you never get picked, why you’re never the chosen one. It’s amplifying every minor flaw. It’s looking at yourself and not liking anything about you. It’s lying in bed overthinking everything you’ve said and done because it must have been something you said, it must have been you. It’s feeling like you’ll never be loved because no one was able to love you back. No one you wanted truly wanted you.
One-sided love is not love. It’s a crush. It’s infatuation. It’s an obsession. It’s liking the idea of someone. But real love is never one-sided. Real love is reciprocated. Real love is patient. Real love is understanding. Real love is two people embarking on a wonderful journey together with all its ups and downs. It’s two people willingly choosing each other. It’s two people trying to accept each other and love the worst parts of one another. It’s two people promising to be there for each other in sickness and in health. It’s loyalty. It’s reassurance. It’s commitment. It’s intimacy. It’s depth. It’s strength. It’s a reason to live longer. It’s a reason to have faith in life. Real love heals. One-sided love breaks. Real love is the only love you need to look for. One-sided love is anything but love. It’s a poetic term for heartbreak. A poetic term for suffering.
Unrequited love hurts, but it is possible to heal, grow, and move on from the experience. It’s important not to take the other person’s lack of feelings personally—it probably has more to do with them than with you. Once you can accept the reality of the situation, you can gain distance and perspective that will allow you to move on and start building a relationship that is reciprocated. Move on, and find true love in the upcoming year!
