Can you romantically love someone who didnt love you back?

i know, i couldn't. i mean maybe had i loved them and they left i would miss them but i really don't think i could continue loving them. to me romantic love requires reciprocation.

so what about you guys?

(and yes, the other thread on this subject did inspire this)

Unrequited.

not to me at least. real love requires certain things that unrequited love just doesn't. (ofcourse not saying this works the same way for everyone , just me)

speaking for myself, of course...

:hi:

RL

but there's nothing romantic about it.

and, i've had somebody love me that i didn't love back.
with time, it fades.

I fell very hard for a guy I worked with; we were friends, but nothing more. Perhaps it was just infatuation, but it felt like real love to me at the time. When he left the job, it took me a while to get over him, but I did.

I have had the misfortune of having that very ability.

I'm a romantic. I will always pine and fantasize about the one I love. I'm rational enough to move on and not let it emcompass my life & be realistic about the outcome. But yes, I will always dream of them.

But then again, I have a broad definition of love.

When you really care deeply for someone and want them to be ok, care about their feelings, their happiness, their day-to-day life? What is love if not a type of caring?

do you mean, as in, having an actual physical relationship where-in only one person is in love? That would kill me - I don't think I could do it. As for having romantic feelings about someone.... hell, I don't know.

How about being romantically in love with someone who you think, at least for a time, feels the same way about you, but knowing that they won't do anything about it, because they're in an unhappy relationship but are unwilling to leave it or be unfaithful? How long can you keep up romantic feelings for that person? Not long, I hope, but I'm afraid it could be years.

I hear ya, about it could be years. So what do you do when you're so in love with someone and you know that's the choice? You just sit around and wait I guess, and wonder & hope.

waiting, wondering, and hoping all seem pretty pointless to me. They can all either turn into idealization or bitterness, all too easily. I think it's better now to just be honest and either try for the relationship that you want, or have none at all and get it over with - pull the bandage off quickly, so to speak. Getting up the courage to start ripping that off knowing that it's going to hurt sucks though.

they're in such a horrible reltionship, unhappy and unsatisfied, no sex, no intimacy...why do people stay in that relationship but seek an affair? but they want to stay in their marriage? please you men, tell me why you'd do that? and you have no kids, but you still stay? why?

safety (you know what this life is - it has no surprises), fear (fear of being hurt, alone, having to start over), stability (if you're renting a house, or god forbid have a shared mortgage with someone else, how the hell do you just leave? what about possessions, pets, cars, etc.?), not wanting to seem like a bad person (you have loads of friends in common, and you would be the horrible person that abandoned someone else), and, yes, most importantly, love (you love this other person incredibly deeply, despite the present circumstances, and are willing to suffer so as not to hurt them).

It sucks, but I do understand it. Damn..... damn, damn. I had one of the most romantic nights of my entire life just sitting and talking with someone, but I don't think it's going to happen again. She lives with her boyfriend, and they'll probably stay together and move away from here in a year or so, and my life will keep going, and I'll always wonder what could or would have happened if circumstances were different, and where she is, what she's feeling, how she's doing.... oh well.

It's not nearly as bad as wondering about what the hell is going on with the person who dumped you because they were unhappy and actually went through with it.

I've been in every possible role in all of these situations, and I still don't understand how the heart works or why, ultimately, we and others make the decisions that we do.

You're so lovely! :)

I'm a self-centered, needy, whining brat as a matter of fact. I'm also kind of a bad person in some cases.

One thing that I am good at, however, is loving people and caring for them, at least in spirit. When it comes to actions and actually being a good friend/boyfriend/brother/son/confidant/etc. I'm a miserable failure.

"as in, having an actual physical relationship where-in only one person is in love?"

stop loving someone because they don't feel the same. If so, I don't really think it was love to begin with. Love is a hard thing to get over.

You can long for them, pine for them, ache over them, and maybe even love them for a little while--but it's not going to last. You need some kind of reciprocation to energize those feelings over the long-term. Without reciprocation, for most people those feelings eventually fade away, starved of energy by denial. Few a sad few, they morph into something bordering a mild form of emotional obsession, and years are wasted missing something that they never really had in the first place.

:) :hi:

:hug:
:loveya:

and we've only seen eachother twice since we met. We're not together, but I can dream, someday.

The first time it happened it took me years to get over them. It was truly horrible.

I've seen it happen.

It can be tough, and it can also be inspiring...

Then again, I look at love as something you do for another person as well as something you can feel. Of course, you can love someone who doesn't feel the same. Just because they do not feel the same does not negate your feelings.

My "first love" I met at twenty two and I certainly dreamed of him (a completely impossible romance) for a decade after we broke up - into my marriage, though no doubt the quality of the marriage had something to do with my long-term pining for M. Now, I don't think I could but maybe that just me being old and jaded.

:shrug:

I've learned over the past year that - at least in my particular case and in the way I found out - the love I had can turn very sour and painful and just out of self preservation I've had to turn it off so the short answer is "no" I can not continue to love someone romantically when they don't have similar feelings.

...at some point, in order to have some semblance of mental health, there comes a time to let it go.

I have many friends that I love in a non-romantic way. But once romance enters into the picture, you're right...if it's not reciprocal, it's not love. It's something else, and the longer it persists in the guise of love, the more damage it can cause.

Sadly yes...

I know this.