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.