Unrequited love

Unrequited love or one-sided love is love that is not openly reciprocated or understood as such by the beloved. The beloved may not be aware of the admirer's deep and strong romantic affection, or may consciously reject it. The Merriam Webster Online Dictionary defines unrequited as "not reciprocated or returned in kind."

Psychiatrist Eric Berne states in his book Sex in Human Loving that "Some say that one-sided love is better than none, but like half a loaf of bread, it is likely to grow hard and moldy sooner." Others, however, like the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, considered that "indispensable...to the lover is his unrequited love, which he would at no price relinquish for a state of indifference." It can also be contrasted with redamancy or the act of reciprocal love.

According to Dr. Roy Baumeister, what makes a man or woman desirable, of course, is a complex and highly personal mix of many qualities and traits. But falling for someone who is much more desirable than oneself, whether because of physical beauty or attributes like charm, intelligence, wit or status, Baumeister calls this kind of mismatch "prone to find their love unrequited" and that such relationships are falling upward. According to some psychologists, opposites do attract, but it is not possible to attract those whose moral values are different.

The inability of the unrequited lover to express and fulfill emotional needs may lead to feelings such as depression, low self-esteem, anxiety and rapid mood swings between depression and euphoria.

'There are two bad sides to unrequited love, but only one is made familiar by our culture' - that of the lover, not the rejector. In fact, research suggests that the object of unrequited affection experiences a variety of negative emotions on a par with those of the suitor, including anxiety, frustration and guilt. As Freud long since pointed out, 'when a woman sues for love, to reject and refuse is a distressing part for a man to play'.

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Wikipedia