It’s hard to find one person in the world who hasn’t fallen in love with someone who didn’t reciprocate their feelings. Out of all the possible situations out there, we’re all connected by the gut wrenching notion of pouring all our love into a bucket filled with holes, no matter how hard we tried to cover them up with our best intentions.

There’s an overwhelming number of songs and poems dedicated to the subject, explaining that it’s not our fault the buttons in our heart decided to click at the wrong time and for the wrong person.

Still, we manage to weave ourselves into these repetitive stories, thinking that if we romanticize the notion of unrequited love it will magically transform itself into something different.

I know because I’ve been there. I’ve cried myself to sleep for weeks listening to these sad songs. I’ve hid away in the dark while friends tried to reach out to me. I’ve placed my hand on my chest to feel for jagged edges, hoping that this time a broken heart would actually manifest itself and turn this sickness into something tangible.

I’ve made myself ill from the anxiety that stems from reading into things that mean nothing at all. There’s no glamour accompanying a breakdown. Ignore what the movies tell you. There’s nothing beautiful about loving someone who doesn’t love you back. The sooner you realize this, the quicker you’ll be able to move on to a more fulfilling relationship with someone who sees the potential all those other people have missed. We tend to glamourize these events with hopes that the object of our desire will magically notice we’re what’s missing in his or her life. But one of life’s toughest lessons is coming to terms with the fact that you can’t force people into loving you, no matter how many grandiose ideals invade your mind telling you that it will work out.

No number of sneaky touches or passionate stares will magically cause this person to fall head over heels. And when our plans fail, we begin to question our self­-worth. We beat ourselves up when we’re stuck in these situations.

We become nit-picky and obsess over every detail that makes us who we are.

We give up on our passions, thinking that maybe they’re too strong for someone to love them as well. We stare at ourselves in the mirror and overanalyze every strand of hair, freckle and little pudge that sticks out, thinking that if we got rid of these physical “imperfections” the object of our desire would come running towards us.

Loving someone who doesn’t love you back is to self­ destruct slowly, it’s to tear apart the foundation of something wonderful and rebuild it with faulty wiring. Not only do we end up weak, but all the love we carry around on our back disintegrates and becomes poisoned when we could be spreading it elsewhere. I can’t tell you to stop feeling love for someone because I don’t know how that’s done, and if I did I would’ve sold the cure for a billion dollars.

What I’m saying is,

when you reach this point of giving out every ounce of your love to someone who doesn’t want it, try and change its course.

Redirect the energy you’ve put into a failed relationship so it flows back into the only soul that should truly matter: yours.

Because as soon as the glow of self­-love swallows you whole, you’ll be too busy to worry about the people who couldn’t love you back.