Unrequited love bringing about intense embarrassment?

Question

It's the same old story we've heard a million times.

Basically, I didn't even believe in love before this man came along, and he pushed and pushed and PUSHED his way into my heart, knowing it'd be an arduous journey.

After about a year of this, I ended up caving... falling in love and not knowing what to do with those feelings.

Fast forward another year, and it turns out things were never as I thought they were. I can't help but wonder, why the pushing? Why'd he try so hard never FEELING anything? But that's neither here nor there...

I'm left feeling all of the typical feelings: heartbroken, angry, worthless, confused. However, what struck me is how EMBARRASSED I feel. I feel embarrassed about letting my guard down, embarrassed that I fell for someone that didn't feel the same way, like I feel duped, and naive.

Have you ever experienced unrequited love?

Did you feel embarrassed about it?

What are your thoughts on this?

I appreciate you answering!

WhiteSteve · Accepted Answer

I've definitely been there. It is a little embarrassing. You think, "what the hell is wrong with me that they wouldn't want me?" I'm probably a little overly-shallow and looks-oriented too, so I take it to heart in a physical way. It doesn't even need to be unrequited love, just unrequited like. I've always dated very beautiful women, so I'm always targeting very beautiful women. When it doesn't work out, my only thought is "I'm not good looking enough?", and I spend the next two weeks doing sit-ups, haha. I forget that women don't prioritize looks as much, and it was probably something else about me, or maybe they liked me just fine but they just liked someone else better. There's always other fish in the sea, but it's humbling to think that we ourselves are just another fish in someone else's sea.

I used to work with a girl in college, and the second I saw her and our eyes met -- ZAPPPP! And I know she felt it too. She was a really cool girl too, and after a few weeks I was head over heels. One night she invited me out to meet her and her friends for a drink, and I did. After the bars let out, I bought her a slice of pizza and we talked a little more. Then I was like, "So what's up with you and me?" and she smiled but was like "Ahhhh...another time, another place..." Since I'm a f*cking bonehead, I took that as "not tonight", and in retrospect I realize she meant "I like you, but it's not going to happen because reasons."

So anyway, I continued my pursuit. She ran hot and cold for months. I remember I had a party one weekend, and I even switched the night of it because I knew she couldn't make it the other night. The day of the party she came in to work for her check, I'm like "you coming tonight?", and she's like "to what? Ohhh, I totally forgot, your party. No, I'm hung over from last night" and my heart sunk. I obviously wasn't a priority to her. Then she had a party for her 21st. She was a huge Dave Matthews fan, so I bought two tickets for a show that summer, even though I hate DMB with the fire of a thousand suns. It guaranteed that I'd see her over the summer though. She got super drunk that night, and when I told her she started kissing me, but I stopped because I didn't want to take advantage. We went to the show that summer. She showed up with two other friends, and I'm like "f*ck, that's a bad sign", and I'm think if and how I should make a move. Then the second we get into the concert park BOOM, all over me. She was making out with me the whole time and I'm like "FINALLY!" She slept over my place and we fooled around, and I'm thinking it's all good when she comes back to school in a couple weeks. Then I see her the next time, and she goes "so we hooked up last time we hung out...is that weird?" I'm like "Jeez, I hope not." Long story short, nothing became of it and she was seeing some other clown. Broke my heart. I think it might've been because she was rich and I'm from the hood. Couldn't bring me home to mom and dad. Tough stuff.

wonderingman · Accepted Answer

Well being me the eternal cluster fu*k I am I tend to fall in love easily, so yeah I experience unrequited love all the time. nothing to be embarrassed about your attracted to them there not to you.

For example sophomore year of high school was actually my first day at an actual high school cause prior to that I had been doing online courses.

I met three girl each one I barely new I fell in love with them one for her kind spirit, another for her melancholic attitude, and another for just being so darn cute.

So I focused on trying to get one at a time, So a month in working on the kind spirited one I find out she has no interest in me and though she new I liked her decided not to acknowledge it and just continue to take the gifts I poured on her trying to get her attention, failed like a boss there. oddly enough not much has changed there I still sort of shower her with attention when I'm around her and in fact I still spend money on her but I'm no longer interested in a relationship with her .

SO I then focused on the melancholic one who turned out to be one of the sweetest people I know to this day, She was funny, kind, sweet, and very innocent, everything I wanted. But I wasn't really compatible with her; hooked her up with a friend of mine, and though I still like her to an absurd degree I just refuse to try anything.

The adorable one is the worst one in my opinion, mainly cause she always gives me a bit of hope before she stomps it out and then does it again, I kid you not we have been together a total of thirteen times and broken up just as many never lasting more than a week. Just a couple weeks ago we were planning on going out to eat, when up out of nowhere she tells me she doesn't like me like that but she still flirts incessantly with me. I don't know I think the problem lies in me for this one cause though I know it won't work out I can't resist trying to work it out anyway. Where's that whole loves always wins thing now eh?

So yeah over all I view unrequited love as a pain but a fun one in the way it's fun to repeatedly stab yourself in the heart till you can no longer feel kinda way but yeah, its not that bad.

LauraMarx · Accepted Answer

In a horrible unrequited love thing right now. My ex-girlfriend just left me last week and I really really really really love her and we're still friends and I LOVE her but she doesn't love me anymore and aughhhh.

Embarrassed, though? No, no... Maybe it's the christian in me ahaha but I'm used to being open and vulnerable and quivering, I am not embarassed by this position. I do not mind being left so desperate for her and looking silly for her because I love her, regardless, and I would look desperate and silly for her. But, I can understand why you'd feel embarassed, I can't imagine an Anarcho-Capitalist feeling anything else tbh lmao.

Anyway: my advice is. There is nothing anyone can say which will alleviate this. This is despair! Rotten despair, terrible despair, mixed feelings and weirdness and dysphoria and regret and grief and mourning and for you embarrassment and these are your feelings! This is what you are dealt with, right? You must feel it. You have no right but to feel it! Feel it absolutely and totally and do not try to block even a moment of it out. And it will pass eventually, you do not feel one single emotion for the rest of your life, not even when you have chronic depression. You will mourn and grieve and you must mourn and grieve. And if that's by feeling embarassed, go ahead.

Only: there is nothing wrong with unrequited love. There is nothing wrong with letting your guard down and letting a terrible man inside, who just leaves you. I think, it is a very beautiful thing. (Leonard Cohen has a song about it, actually - 'The Stranger' - well worth listening to, the lyrics are beautiful and about this, it's about a man coming in and demanding you give him shelter and then just leaving with scarcely a goodbye)

You'll find ways to deal with it, though. I'm reading Baudelair's 'Fleurs du Mal' at the minute, which deals with these kinds of feelings. Linking love with death and grief and sorrow. Sadistic love, horrible love... And a lot of lesbians. Lesbaisn for Baudelaire are women who desire and desire and desire but can never be satisfied (because at the time it was held commonly that women desired and would only be satisfied by a man - so for Baudelaire, lesbians desire endlessly without the promise of satisfaction - what a metaphor for unrequited love! His 'Island of Lesbos', where love is given perfectly in exchange for sorrow, is perfect.)

If you like poetry poetry is really good for these kinds of feelings, I think, cos it gives you a language to understand your pain through. Baudelaire is great for this because it deals with ones own feelings of evil, disgustingness, worthlessness, and endless desire, impossibility, longing, etc., as well as gross sh*t like he cuts open a girls side and f***s it lmao it's disgusting.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Yes! Unfortunately, for me I feel like its one of those things that I'll never get over. I know I'm over HIM, but I don't feel like I'll ever quite get over "IT." And I do feel embarassed over it. I met the guy when I was eighteen, he was in love with his Ex and I was very nieve about dating etc at the time. I lost my virginity to him, lost contact with him. Reconnected with him, and continued to hold on for several years. I think I held on for so long because it never made any sense to me, I could never get real answers from him. He'd confide in me, cry in front of me, be there for me when it was convient for HIM, but he never treated me with any respect. I'd always give in to him, and he even continued to talk me when I stopped giving in. I didn't feel like just a "f*** buddy" and I didn't feel like a true friend. I still don't know if he was manipulating me all those years or honestly needed me. The fact that I'll never understand and the sh*t I put myself through would just kill me sometimes.

But at least I learned something about self-respect. And finally letting it go and accepting that I'll never really know what was between us is the best thing I've ever done for myself.

Unnatti · Accepted Answer

Well, what happened with me is kind of similar.

He was after me for a year and a half. And it was surprising, because he was very good-looking and had many girls who'd want to date him.

We finally started dating and it was all good, but the catch was that he was moving away.

We managed the distance for about a year but it was too much (different continents). It's been 6 months since the break-up, and I'm still struggling to get over him, while I'm sure he's already moved on. It's insane to think that exactly one year back, at this time, he was crazily in love with me, and now he just isn't..

koibito · Answer

Unrequited love, yes. But I'm not sure why I didn't feel that embarrassed over it.

I fell for a lot of girls, and finally had the courage to ask one out. I believed it would work out, I thought about her everyday, and tried to find opportunity to always talk to her. It didn't feel like it was working out, so I tried even harder. The messages got even more confusing, I was so stressed everyday.

Eventually I asked her what was up, and she replied that she didn't fall in love with me like she thought she would. I was crushed, I couldn't believe that I had been so blind. I took a day to mull over it and decided to accept her breaking up. Sure it was embarrassing to have had done everything for nothing, but I was so terribly hurt and confused when I was with her, that I was relieved to finally have some conclusion to it all.

So the end wasn't embarrassing. Embarrassment was the least of my feelings at that point.

GingerStarlite · Answer

*sigh* Welcome to my life.  I've never actually been in love, but I have really really liked people and thought I could love them, only to find out that everything was a lie.  And I usually do end up feeling angry with them and also with myself, because I had been such an idiot to not notice that they didn't really give a sh*t about me.  And there usually is some embarrassment, yes.  I do usually feel duped and I also find it very difficult to talk about this with other people, when they ask where so and so is or what happened.  That is when I get super embarrassed, when people ask questions and I'm afraid to tell them that he never really liked me and I just got used, again.

UncleScrooge · Answer

I've experienced it quite strongly; I think most people have at some point. I wouldn't say that embarrassment was an issue, but I did used to feel like it was a waste of time, or that it was stupid of me to care strongly for someone who didn't feel the same way. However, after reading Dante Alighieri's "La Vita Nuova," I have a completely different take on the whole subject. It's a very different idea about unrequited love (as compared to what you'll usually hear), and he shows how it can in fact be a positive, and enjoyable, thing. If you're feeling down, I suggest you give it a read; it's short, and there's no way you can finish it and not feel hopeful about love.

Jonny_ · Answer

I've fallen in love a few times, definitely didn't resist it... it hurts when it ends, but at the same time I didn't feel embarrassed, we were definitely in love at one stage... I know it wasn't that they felt nothing for me the whole time. I don't see the reason to be embarrassed, it's not your fault that someone plays you... especially if they're trying so hard to appear genuine, might be different if he was a d*** beforehand and a d*** the whole way through and suddenly you noticed he was a d***.

I think some guys push so hard to prove that they can do it and sometimes so they can get what they want from a girl... it's wrong and stupid, but hey, those guys are screwing themselves. If you find someone and can make them care strongly about you and you don't jump at the chance of keeping someone like that? You're a complete f***ing idiot, you'll end up alone and you'll look back regretting every time you've done it.

mattygfromtheMD32 · Answer

Well, it wasn't love, but I always feel that way when falling for someone. There was a girl over the summer that I fell hard for, and I thought she was feeling the same way, sending me hints and stuff, and so I finally kind of asked her out, and a week later I get a BS cancellation, and I'm told a week after that by my co-worker that it was because I was too young. A bit of a slap in the face.

I don't know if that answers your question, but yeah I did feel embarrassed that I thought this girl liked me and it turns out it was never an option.

RealDeal · Answer

It really comes down to how you handle it. Don't be embarrassed and don't be so hard on yourself. we've all been there before.

Anonymous · Answer

yes. I don't necessarily feel embarrassed but I feel that I should have known better. ignoring all the signs and taking the risks just to fall up short. it's hard because you don't even realize what happened until afterward and slowly you look back and realize everything was not what it seemed.

martyfellow · Answer

Aside from puppy crushes in my teen years, I've never had major disappointments in love, maybe because I usually had crushes on so many at once that being rejected by any one of them never impacted me much.

I still remember the pretty Chinese AMerican girl telling me to get lost because I was a 'dumb Italian.' So I called her a banana, yellow outside, white inside. You should have seen her face twist! Italians 13, snobby Anglo-wannabes, 0.

ChristopherLosRivera · Answer

I have and I did feel embarrassed. Now I let go of that resentment and just feel grateful for the way she made me feel regardless of whatever her real intentions were.

A cliché but still relevant: better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

zagor · Answer

Yes!

I became completely hung up on this girl working as a summer intern where I used to work. I mean totally obsessed. When she went back to school I went into a deep depression.

I wasn't embarrassed about it though, but rather was furious with myself for getting so infatuated - I had always prided myself on being a rational person and wound up hating myself for not being able to control my feelings.

Thermia · Answer

I feel embarrassed when I think about my experiences so I try to block it out of my mind before I start facepalming myself.

StevenVW · Answer

Hmm, I don't believe in love anyway, I wish some woman would challenge that belief once.

But I don't think it'll happen since I'm firmly anchored in my belief that what we call "love" is in fact little more than mindless self indulgence.

gator909 · Answer

Maybe you just took to long.

Unrequited love bringing about intense embarrassment?

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