How to Deal with One-Sided Love

Lets be honest folks! Most of us have been there. Some of us more often than is healthy to accept – to our little world of ‘somebodies’ as well as ourselves!

To be madly, helplessly in love with somebody that’s never going to feel the same kind of desire for you is a slow, painful pill to swallow. We begin with the odd sense of optimism; every gesture that hints to a personal experience feels like a potentially perfect love story in the making. It progresses to a point where you get to know the said somebody better and fall deeper into this miraculous quicksand! Before we know it, we’re past that point of no return; and it is at this point precisely when you start feeling the helplessness of the cause. You make an effort, to reach out, to bridge the gap we all know exist, but somehow convince ourselves is always bridgeable given the time.

And then finally, reality hits us square in the face; and we know with an odd sense of finality, the futility of the entire exercise. We know you’ve reached that comfort level with the said somebody which can neither progress to what we desire and nor regress to the point where it becomes insignificant.

We curse ourselves for not taking the cue to walk away when we still could, without considerable pain. We curse ourselves for being the nice person that was so easy & inevitable to like, but not good enough to be desired.

The impact these one way roads have on our self esteems is painful & pitiful; but to be extremely honest, if you’re still reading at this point, you all know you probably wouldn’t have this any other way! To feel attracted to somebody as helplessly as this is an experience, just as much as being run down by a hum-vee while walking across the zebra crossing and living to tell the tale is.

It leaves you with the satisfaction of knowing you were honest enough to yourself and the said somebody. You made an attempt to connect with a complete stranger and discover something worth remembering. You left your insecurities and vulnerabilities at home and took the gamble of placing the delicate balance of your emotions on the line.
Well it didn’t pay off, and you lost! But you still own the experience of knowing a fleeting moment of hopeless adoration for someone; the satisfaction of feeling this was as worse as it could get with this particular situation and you still survived.

I think the key to moving out of this quicksand is accepting that you will get stonewalled sometimes in life, and irrespective of the outcome, it was probably worth its while if the journey was enjoyable and happy! I think one prime reason that people find it difficult to move on from failure, is because they are afraid they will never feel the same way again, and well, honestly? They’re right – they won’t! But is that such a bad thing in the end? Every experience is unique isn’t it? It doesn’t mean you will never love somebody else again, nor does it mean just because you failed in your attempt to fulfill your dream, you will never succeed at it.

My personal way of dealing with spurned love stories or failed attempts at chasing a dream begins with embracing it head on! You’re not moving on to anything so long as you don’t accept you’re stuck in the first place. And while you’re stuck, might as well stop struggling against it and see where it gets you eh? Never hurts to taste something new, even if it’s just failure – it could still be a new kind of failure yeah? So let yourself go fellas, cease control and let things fall in place for themselves when you being in control isn’t helping anyway; for something as messy as spurned love can also teach you something and introduce you to a part of yourself you didn’t know existed 

P.S – just make sure you’re not turning into an obsessive, one sided lover who goes about flinging acid on people’s faces just because they don’t love you back – hey! It’s your problem if you fail to generate a positive response in the brain of the person you’re attracted to! So keep the pseudo-machoism in your pants and spread the love people 😉

Also Read:

Freedom, Independence & Such Things

Wanderlust – A Way of Life