What is Unrequited Love?

Unrequited love is an experience that’s best not experienced. It’s one of the worst kinds of love that can affect your life negatively unless you put a stop to it. Find out what is unrequited love here.

There are so many ways to fall in love with someone.

While nothing beats the burst of happiness that true mutual love can give you, nothing can feel as painful as experiencing unrequited love.

Unrequited love is a kind of cursed love, where you can’t help but fall in love with someone even though you know that person will never love you back.

You may be confused between limerence and unrequited love.

When you’re experiencing limerence, you don’t really care about reciprocation in love. Just the sight of your crush can make your day and give a skip in your step.

But when you experience unrequited love, every heartbeat aches and hopes the one you love will love you back.

What is unrequited love?

To be bluntly put, unrequited love is a humiliating and cruel experience that can strip you of your dignity and self respect.

After all, you’d be ready to do anything for this person just as long as they show you a glimmer of loving hope.

Before we talk about what unrequited love really is, you need to understand a few things.

Have you ever let the person you love know of your feelings? Or is it a secret obsession that’s starting to take over your entire life? If you haven’t really asked this person out, well, it really isn’t unrequited love yet, is it? It’s just a secret crush that’s waiting to be revealed.

Now a crush is just a crush and it’s definitely not unrequited love, not at least until you reveal your feelings to this person and are turned down.

Experiencing unrequited love

The most painful part of unrequited love is when you fall in love with someone and express your feelings, and they turn you down for some reason or the other.

You know you have to move on and get over this person who’s pierced your heart, but guess what, you’re just not able to. Your life starts to revolve around this one person and with every day that passes, you only feel more miserable and hopeless. It’s a sad place to be, and that’s definitely not an exaggeration.

If you want to know how to get over unrequited love and have a happy life that’s full of sunshine again, you need to be truthful to yourself and follow everything mentioned here. Get these steps right and you’ll definitely be able to walk away with dignity.

[Read: How to know if you're in love]

Getting deeper into unrequited love

The biggest mistake most people make in unrequited love is to cling on to a string of hope, with a wish that their crush will love them back someday.

Now there are no clear stages in unrequited love, but with each passing day that you involuntarily let yourself fall more in love with this person, the deeper you’re going to sink into unrequited love and the more painful your experience will be.

If you ever do fall in love with someone, work your courage up and let them know of your feelings. And if they don’t reciprocate the love, pursue them for a bit longer if you must, but learn to give up at some point of time.

The thin line between blissful love and unrequited love is almost always never visible, so it’s a dangerous game of fatal attraction that you’re stepping into when someone turns you down, and you continue to pursue them.

It’s always better to watch for signs of reciprocation so you can know whether to pursue someone or not, but these signs are never easy to decipher, especially if your crush is playing with your feelings.

The best thing to do at times likes these is either to back away and meet someone else. Or if you think you can handle it, pursue your crush, but keep yourself occupied with other things and date other people so you’re not slipping deeper into the quicksand of unrequited love.

Unrequited love and your crush

If you want to understand what unrequited love is and how to get over it, you need to think about the kind of relationship you share with this person.

You may have a huge crush on this person, but is your crush just using you?

Think about it and be truthful to yourself here. In most cases, unrequited love steps into the picture only because you constantly see a glimmer of hope that makes you hold on to this kind of love, even if there’s really no hope in the first place. Is this person you’re in love with trying to get you to do things for them by sweet talking you, or by using you as a sex buddy just to sleep with you for a fun time while you fall more in love? [Read: Are you in love or lust?]

Is your crush playing you?

It’s easy to walk away if your crush helps you by avoiding you for a while, or by helping you heal by stopping you from flirting or sweet talking them. It may hurt a while, but it’s still the right thing to do. But if your crush tries to flirt with you now and then or pretends like they’re in love with you, just to win your heart back and make you fall more in love all over again, you’re falling in love with a really bad person who really doesn't deserve you.

Unrequited love isn't always a one sided story. You’re probably in this cruel phase because your crush is using you, perhaps because they like the attention or maybe it’s because of some other reason.

If you ever find yourself experiencing a relationship with your crush that blows hot and cold, stay away from this person before unrequited love consumes you and makes every single day a miserable experience.

If you've been wondering what is unrequited love, understand what it is and make sure you stay away from this kind of love. It’s got nothing but agony and pain in store for you. But if you’re already experiencing unrequited love, read about how to get over unrequited love and have a happier life.