it feels real...

An acquaintance and I were talking about unrequited love recently (in very vague terms)  and she told me she doesn't believe it's real love.

I told her it might not be right and it's certainly not returned, but that doesn't make it any less real, no matter how one-sided. The feelings are certainly real and caring for someone, no matter whether they do or do not think of you in any kind of way, is real too.

But it's absolutely pointless, she argued.

Yes, and it's painful, too. But that doesn't take away that it happens, that it lodges itself inside your heart, whether you want it there or not.

Gay or straight, no one in her right mind would want that. But even worse than that it is to be denied your own feelings, when that is the one thing you have in all of the horrible mess that is unrequited love.

I'm sure anyone who really likes someone and is in it alone would tell you they don't want to be. They want a reciprocal relationship, want what two people in love usually have. Sometimes, they even want a family.

When I was in my thirties and first started thinking it might not be so "out there" to start a family as a lesbian, with another lesbian, it almost seemed too late. The few women I did meet either didn't like me or were turned off by my old-fashioned ideas.

By my late 30s, I had long stopped trying, between heartbreak and realizing I just could not live with myself knowing how my parents feel about not just gay marriage, but gay people in general.

So I started living vicariously through other people...either through reading, or by knowing the few gay friends I had who were happy in committed relationships (as were my straight friends.) I became happy that they were happy and I loved seeing elderly customers at work who appeared to have been happy and together for decades.

That was enough for me and I was happy, until I met someone that made me think of ballads like Heart's "Alone" and Paramore's "The Only Exception." Then, I became a cliché that even I had to agree was just plain silly.

You could say unrequited love is a vicarious experience, but if it is, I don't want it; I don't. I mean, really, what kind of rational person would want that?

Besides the "unreturned" part of it all, there's the conviction that you don't really have the right to worry about them. The person I like has a lot on her plate right now and I am concerned about her, but I wish I had my own someone, with whom I had an actual relationship, who not only wouldn't mind I care, but would welcome the concern.

For me, that is the hardest part of unrequited love...having all those feelings of love and concern in your heart and having nowhere for them to go.