Unrequited Love

“I have to admit, an unrequited love is so much better than a real one. I mean, it's perfect... As long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential.”
― Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

Reading the above quotation was truly enlightening. Think about it, unrequited love, one in which one's love is not returned is always thought of the most depressing thing. The one thing about it is its over before it has begun. There was no point of being the pursuer or the pursued. No part of building promises and trust that lay waiting to be broken. No passions rising and falling as one breathes.  No exchange of vows be they public or private. 

Unrequited love is much like romantic,courtly  love where one worships from afar, never approaching the beloved. There is no chance for for the lovers to ever touch maybe never meeting but one is always the beloved and the other the lover, never to change. 

The whole thought of marriage being the result of love between two people is relatively new, perhaps a phenomenon of the twentieth century originating in the United States of America. Marriage from the time of its inception was an arrangement between two families that brought stronger bonds for both families. Usually it was wealth and power that was the consideration. But even the very poor made these arrangements. My Grandmother met her husband at the age of 14 and he was about a decade older when her father and his friend fulfilled an agreement made in youth that their families would be united by a marriage. They were poor and had nothing to gain except the fulfillment of a childhood promise which affected their children. The thought of love being involved was so far fetched that it wasn't even considered. This took place in the USA in the year 1889.  The love my grandmother had to give was given to her children. She had plenty to give but it was not to be shared with a man of her generation.  She also lived at a time when women had no rights and could be abused as the husband wished, or not.

Unrequited love can be like courtly love but many times the pursuer makes his or her feeling known and then is rejected. Whether it be courtly love or rejected approaches nothing was ever started so nothing was ended. When the feelings are exchanged there is a beginning, middle and an end. This is where it becomes excruciatingly painful because there are many promises made or assumed that never come to fruition. Untold visions of a future that are dashed. This is where the people involved let themselves open to shown vulnerabilities and can be hurt leaving scars that may never  heal. Yet to quote Tennyson, "It is better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all".  But best of all the following quote:

Oh, seek my love your newer way

I'll not be left in sorrow.

As long as I have yesterday

Go take your damned tomorrows.

(Dorothy Parker )