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-- Post From My iPhone

You Thought I Forgot? The Conclusion.

Actually, I was busy uploading videos to YouTube, but anyway, to close out Unrequited Love Awareness Week (ULAW), I'll just hit you with the link to the Wikipedia page, and a few more things.

First, the link to Wikipedia.

Next, a few reasons why I blogged about ULAW this week.

• Unrequited Love Sucks!
• Unrequited Love deprives the sufferer of necessary human emotions.
• Unrequited Love can lead to depression, and no antidepressant can cure it.
• Unrequited Love can affect future relationships, for the victim can live in fear of losing the current partner.
• Unrequited Love is the least desirable of feelings.
• Valentine's Day is the bane of all sufferers of Unrequited Love. Since the day is filled with expressions of romantic love (ἔρως eros), the sufferer commonly feels left out.

There. That's a few reasons why I started this. Hopefully, next year will be different. I really wouldn't mind a good cuddle every now and then.

Just like in fishing, sometimes they get away…

Unrequited Love Awareness Week would not be complete without a look at another one of its outcomes. Basically, a girl you have a crush on (or some other form of romantic interest) suddenly becomes unavailable (typically by marrying someone else). The subject of your interest then becomes "one that got away."

This has reference to the old fishing metaphor. Let's say you're fishing, and you have a fish on your hook that is certain to be a prize fish. Maybe your efforts to reel the fish in are so intense that the line breaks. Maybe the fish is too much for you to handle. In any case, you're forced to let the fish go. Same thing in this case. For whatever reason, the person doesn't go for you.

I've had several of these in my life. One went away to college in Idaho and came back at the end of her first semester engaged. Another met someone on the Internet. Another had the audacity of announcing her getting away from me (read: engagement) via text message, complete with smiling emoticon! (How's that for impersonal? I would have responded with a frowning emoticon if I wanted to.)

I have had a total of 7 of these situations. A few of these (including the one I wrote about yesterday) were unrequited loves.

As much as it sucks to have a love go unreciprocated or unrequited, it can be something else to let one get away from you.

The Most Devastating Unrequited Love

RESTRICTED

Because of the sensitivity of the topic of this particular blog post, I have elected not to post it to The B24 Blog. However, if you are one of my Facebook friends, you'll know where to find it, IF you're one of the guys.

Feeling Unrequited?

While it's almost never easy to get over unrequited love, there are a couple of things that can help ease the pain. They won't help you find someone, but they can ease the pain.

Here's an article from the New York Times showing that the pain of unrequited love afflicts the rejecter as well as the rejected.

Here's a Facebook group with a very appropriate title.

Share your story with those who can sympathize with your situation. It'll be OK.

Speaking of sharing stories, have I got a doozey for you! I'll post it tomorrow on Facebook, but I'll only let certain people see it.

What Am I Doing Wrong?

I recently replied to a friend's status on Facebook, stating my previous claim that the only kind of love that matters on Valentine's Day is romantic love (or ἔρως, eros, as the Greeks call it). She replied that if the only kind of love that matters to a person on V-day is romantic, then they're doing something wrong on the other days of the year. I thought about this statement for a moment. I then discovered that something that was wrong. It's three little words that construct a single phrase: "Not Getting Any." While the rest of the English-speaking world may refer to "not getting any" in a sexual context, I use it here in a much broader context.

The context in which I use this phrase is the same one that all sufferers of unrequited love are associated with. They give, but they don't receive. They show their love, affection, and desire to further the relationship towards a person, but that person doesn't give any back in return. In other words, the lover doesn't get any back from the beloved.

The progression of love in a relationship, using the Greek language (I'm just loving the Greek language right now.) is first, ἀγάπη, agape, the general love one towards another. A respect for other people which has nothing to do with being friends or lovers, just the fact that that other person is a fellow human being. The next stage is φιλία, philia, a more familiar relationship. This relationship is had between friends and family. It's that "brotherly love" that people with close ties to each other have for each other. Finally, there's ἔρως, eros, the passionate love that is most commonly seen (in conjunction with φιλία) between boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife, and other such couples, showing their affection toward each other publicly. It needn't be sexual, just romantic.

"Not getting any" comes when one wants to transition the relationship from φιλία to ἔρως, or introduce more of the latter into an existing relationship. Situation: A guy wants to further his relationship with a girl he's been interested in for a while. He has had various opportunities to hang out with her and a group of mutual friends, but he now desires a more "one-on-one" type of relationship. He wants a bit of ἔρως thrown into the mix. He asks her to go out on a date with him. Now several things can happen here. If she turns him down, it's devistating for him, especially if he was genuinely attracted to her. If she says yes, it can mean one of two things. It could mean that she genuinely has an interest in him (in which case, more ἔρως can safely enter the relationship), or she just doesn't have the heart in her to flat out say no and hurt his feelings. If the latter is the case, this leads him on to thinking that the relationship is progressing, but in reality, she's just doing it to be nice. This may eventually lead to the "Let's just be friends" discussion, which basically destroys him more than just saying no to him when he first asked. It's like making an investment in the stock market. If she accepts the date invitation, it's like the price of his emotional stock is rising. It's a bull market for him. But when she says, "Let's just be friends," the stock makes a spectacular crash. (Like the price of a share of Google (GOOG) dropping from $350 to $0.01 in the time it takes for her to utter that phrase.)

I have had situations like this numerous times in my life, but there was one who transformed my emotional investment from the hottest stock on the market to a penny stock almost instantly. More on that later.

Valentine's Day: It's All About Eros

Yesterday, I went to Red Lobster with my family. The first words out of our server's mouth were, "Happy Valentine's Day." I reply, "What's there to be happy about?" This is my general attitude toward the day. Everywhere I look, I see couples going around to restaurants, movie theaters, parks, anywhere else that's public, obviously showing their affection towards each other. My reason for asking, "What's there to be happy about?" is simple. Valentine's Day, in its current form, is a celebration of love. Not just any kind of love, mind you, but a specific type of love: Romantic love. I am of the opinion that romantic love is the only kind of love that matters on Valentine's Day. Since I am not currently in a relationship, I do not have that outlet to which I can share requited romantic love, and so I am frustrated at the fact that others are getting it while I am not. It's like the kid in a candy store who, while in line to buy some candy, is continuously being passed over. While everyone else in the store is getting candy, the kid has been skipped and overlooked so many times, he has no choice but to leave the store visibly upset.

Every time I see a couple, cuddling, kissing, holding hands, with the couple visibly happy with each other, I think to myself, "I want that," referring to the relationship and the obvious status thereof. It just bugs me that I have been, up to this point, unable to obtain that. All my relationship experience has consisted of love unrequited. You know, "I love her, but she doesn't love me," or "She sees me as nothing more than a friend," or "Get away from me before I file a restraining order against you," things like that. (Although I must say that I have never heard that last one used against me.)

If there was more than one word in the English language used to identify a certain type of love. The Greek language has at least three. At least, these three are the big ones:

First is Philia (φιλία), which means friendship in modern Greek. It's a love without passion. "It includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality and familiarity," according to Wikipedia. This word is the root word for the name of the city of Philadelphia.

Next is Agapē (ἀγάπη), which is more of a general love. The above-linked Wikipedia page says, "It can be described as the feeling of being content or holding one in high regard. The verb appears in the New Testament describing, amongst other things, the relationship between Jesus and the beloved disciple....The Christian sense of the term expands the original Greek sense and encompasses a total commitment or self-sacrificial love for the thing loved. A great deal of Christian theology is indebted to the frequency of this word and its interpretation in the New Testament."

The final one of the Big Three Greek Words for Love is Eros (ἔρως), which is a passionate love. "Eros can be interpreted as a love for someone whom you love more than the philia love of friendship. It can also apply to dating relationships as well as marriage." It does not have to be sexual in nature (the English word "erotic" comes directly from this Greek word), but it has to be more than just philia. This kind of love is what Valentine's Day is categorized to be about.

While you can demonstrate Agapē love to almost anyone you see on the street, and have Philia love for your friends, it's this Eros love that makes Valentine's Day special for almost everyone.

As a relationship matures, there may be a shift in the balance of the types of love between the couple. However, on Valentine's Day, it's all about eros. Those who want eros, but can't get eros tend to end up not liking the day much. Those who want eros with someone who only wants philia with that person is even worse, as he is the victim of what we call, "Unrequited Love."

"Happy" Unrequited Love Awareness Week!

There are many names associated with unrequited love: Cyrano de Bergerac, Don Quixote, Charlie Brown, the list goes on. But nothing could be more crushing to the heart of an individual than to be the victim of unrequited love. The numbers are unknown to me at this point, but I would think that millions of people around the world – both men and women, but mostly men – suffer from loving someone who does not love them back. I have experienced this feeling numerous times, and I can, without any hesitation, declare that unrequited love stinks. That's why I declare this week – February 14th through February 20th – to be Unrequited Love Awareness Week. It is a week to recognize those among us who may be suffering from this heartbreaking predicament, and perhaps help them get out of it by showing them what everyone in this world needs: A relationship where romance is a mutually contributing factor.

Also take note that while suffering from Unrequited Love is a negative feeling, the only word in the English language which recognizes the observance of some event or holiday is the word Happy. So, while the idea itself is a negative one which brings much unhappiness, observance of a recognition of such an idea with an attempt to seek out and help those who may be suffering from it can cause much happiness to all involved. Therefore, I put the word Happy in quotation marks, to indicate that the idea being recognized is, in and of itself not one that brings happiness.

As for the timing of this observance, well, Valentine's Day is the perfect day to recognize it, since with all the requited lovers out there, almost none of them recognize that there are still those who feel left out or excluded in something that all should be happily participating in (unless, of course, they don't want it, but that's another story). Maybe next year, I'll move it so that it ends on Valentine's Day (Feb. 8-14), to make it a goal for those unrequiteds to shake it on V-day.

As for this lowly blog, each day I'll try to find something to write about.