A
female
age
30-35,
*itty_3
writes:Do you think it's possible to love someone without him/ her loving you back? Personally, i'm not sure... it sometimes seems like an obvious NO... but other times, when i look back at people i've "loved" (when it wasn't reciprocated) i think that it must have been love for me to feel that way for 3 YEARS without getting anything in return. but it's also possible that real love feels completely different which i wouldn't know since i've never been in a relationship. Reply to this Question
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reader, anonymous, writes (10 February 2009): Love is a strange thing it creeps up on us, when we least expect it, sometimes you love but don’t get love in return, but angel that doesn’t mean that that love was not real, it simply means that you loved and the other person did not feel the same, love doesn’t have a time ort place, it doestn look at shape or size or color or status, it just finds you, but you loving doesn’t mean you will get love in return, you would just have to wait for love to grow in that persons heart, and if it doesn’t… then you move on, you will find a person that will love you back and when that true love walks in yes you will feel different, coz this time you will be getting love in return, your heart will be flooded with emotion, coz the more love you give that person the more you will get. Good luck and be careful cupid is in the air
A
male
reader, Tomas +, writes (10 February 2009):
It's absolutely possible to love someone who doesn't love you. That's what's meant by unrequited love.Also remember there are many different kinds of love (try looking up Love on Wikipedia). There's not really one thing that is "real" love and others that aren't. Having said that, adult will often tell teenagers that they aren't really in love.The earliest/youngest kinds of love generally are crushes ("boy crazy" / "girl crazy"). These can be physical ("beautiful" "so cute") or idealizing ("prince charming" "cinderella"). Basically these early loves feel like the person you love is a totally different kind of person from everyone else, almost magical.To adults, these kinds of loves seem like children's cartoons, unrealistic caricatures. Like Santa Clause.They don't *feel* unrealistic, though, and are just as pleasurable and scary to those going through them. And everybody everywhere goes through them, even if they are embarrassed about them afterwards.After some time in a relationship (or multiple ones), you start to appreciate not just the crush part, but how other people make you feel in a relationship. Consideration, humor, romance, respect. Future relationships usually start with this more realistic view, and aren't about finding the magic person, but about finding someone who is attractive and good and who fits well with you.By the time people grow up (say their twenties), and are in relationships, there are usually two types of love they will talk about. And they both kind of depend on things being reciprocal (both people feeling it), at least at first.At first, when you are in a relationship, you stop being in love with the idea of the person, and they become a real thing (like the difference between the picture of a cat in a book, and a cat curled up on your lap). Their physical presence takes on a meaning for you - you know how they smell, how their skin feels. Those things imprint on you (I remember distinctly how a girlfriend's hair felt on my face 15 years ago). People often talk about this as feeling "in love."This can also lead to impulsive behavior, which is why everyone always goes on and on about the importance of birth control ... like vampires in the movies, there's the sight of a bare neck, some animal instinct takes over, and before you know it the species has reproduced.After some time of "in love" (6 months to a year or two), the chemical reaction changes some. You still can feel that passion sometimes, but there is less of the urgency of needing to have them or be with them (since you already can and are). Love then become more a sense of safety, of feeling known and not alone, of having a real future and place in the world. People often refer to this as "loving" someone (versus being "in love" with them).So to recap - unrequited love is very common, and natural, but to grow and learn more about love, you need to experience the real thing, especially when you are young, so as to get past that "magic person" stage and learn about how relationships really work.Which is not the same as just having sex, and don't forget the birth control ;-P
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