For The Girls Who Fall In Unrequited Love

I’m so tired of the stigma that comes with unrequited love, and the expectations of love in general. If you love someone and they do not love you back…it sucks, it really does. Your heart feels like a heavy weight in your chest, an ache that makes you think twice if it’s a muscle pumping blood or this cavern where your soul resides, holding your insecurities and pain.

You think why doesn’t he or she love me back, what am I doing wrong? There is one thing we cannot change, and that’s the other person. For anyone who loves someone that does not love them back, know this: you cannot change someone, they have to want to change, and that’s an internal conflict they must face on their own time. Here is what you can do, you can love them. I live in an apartment with 13 other girls and if there is one thing I’ve learned this year its that everyone has a fucking opinion. Girls watch other girls fall in and out of love. We see the cyclic nature of love and lust, we see broken hearts and tears, which leads us to give negative advice toward one another when a boy is not treating us correctly.

If you want to love that boy who doesn’t love you back, then you should. You should love him as much as you can. Now that’s not me saying you should love that asshole who uses you for sex or treats you shitty. Society tells us to say “fuck him” to the guy that doesn’t love us back, but I’m not sure how I feel about that expectation. Girls love to tell other girls to move on from the boy that broke them. Unrequited love is equated with being pathetic, desperate, and stupid. I do not agree.

I think unrequited love is the most powerful of loves. It’s a love that says I don’t care what anyone else thinks of me, I’m going to love you even if you don’t love me back. It is a permanent placement of your heart in someone’s hands, even if they don’t want it and it’s scary as fuck. I’m sure most people reading this probably think this girl is delusional, and that the man to which these thoughts originate is just an asshole who has a spell over me. Which brings me to the guy on the other end. There are many types of men, but women so easily categorize men upon meeting them. If a guy does something fucked up to a girl he’s automatically an asshole. There are those men that fall in between the categories, the ones that have potential to be more than the asshole they’re pretending to be. I see so many levels of complexity to that man.

That is the man that needs to be loved. Love is always portrayed as the woman who needs to be saved or healed by the man. Prince Charming comes to save you and ride off into the sunset on a white horse. But what if the man needs to be saved? What if the man you love cannot give you what you want ever or maybe right now, but he may love you back and care for you deeply. I think that we look at love in such a one sided way. I used to be so caught up in making sure I was always in control of my experiences with boys. I could never be as equally vulnerable as my counterpart, because then I became scared of getting hurt. To avoid becoming hurt, I stand on this figurative pedestal to remain in an untouchable, unattainable area, where men can reach me but they can never fully align themselves at my level.

That is until you meet the man that will knock you off, the one that shakes you to your core, the one that cares for you but says he cannot be with you. Be vulnerable, be emotional, be thankful for the guy that knocked you down, because you stand back up eventually. Who cares if you love them and you’re embarrassed because they hurt you, love them with all you have. Don’t listen to the people that tell you you’re supposed to move on now and forget about them. You can love someone and still do that, give them a space in your heart.

Think about them in your bed at night at 1 am when you can’t sleep, remember the features of their face, and cry when your heart hurts because you miss them so much. Fuck anyone that tells you to stop loving the boy that doesn’t love you back, because girls sometimes guys need a special girl to heal them. You don’t have to outwardly project your love, even thinking about him during the day is enough. Don’t shy away from feelings and vulnerability, embrace it, every thought, feeling, tear, and ache, because yeah maybe that guy you love does not love you back, but give him every part of you anyway.

Break yourself down, so you can build yourself back up. Even if he doesn’t realize it, there is someone out there who loves him more than he knows, and that small hope is enough for me to keep doing it.