Unrequited love. The very phrase can evoke a pang of bittersweet recognition, a shadow of longing that many of us have known. To love someone deeply, only to have that love unmet, can feel like a uniquely sharp form of heartache. It’s natural to wish for that love to be reciprocated, to dream of a shared future. When those hopes are dashed, the pain can be profound. We might find ourselves wishing we could simply switch off our feelings, erase the connection, or even turn back time and never have fallen in love at all. If you’ve navigated this emotional landscape, you understand this intimately. Even if you haven’t personally experienced it, you can likely imagine the emotional turmoil involved.
It’s no surprise that people seek ways to move on from those who don’t return their affections. From grand gestures like Rex Gascoigne’s (in Daniel Deronda) imagined escape to Canada after being rejected by Gwendolen Harleth, to more common coping mechanisms like seeking solace in social distractions or well-meaning but often clumsy attempts at matchmaking by friends, the desire to escape the pain is strong. Friends offer advice, suggesting remedies to distract and heal. Yet, those who have truly loved without return know a fundamental truth: while these distractions may offer temporary respite from the immediate hurt, they don’t extinguish the flame of love itself.
Why is it so difficult to simply stop loving someone, even when it causes pain? Because the logical realization that moving on would be ‘better’ for us doesn’t change the nature of love itself. Love, in its essence, is often arational. But this isn’t a wholly bleak picture. While unrequited love carries inherent bitterness, by shifting our perspective, we can transform it into something bittersweet, even meaningful.
Love that is rational is based on reasons – we love someone because of certain qualities. For example, Anna Karenina’s love for Count Vronsky in Tolstoy’s novel could be seen as rational if based on his charm and attentiveness. However, arational love exists beyond such justifications. One philosophical puzzle, the ‘problem of particularity’, highlights this. If love were purely rational, based on qualities like charm, why would we love one charming person over another? Many possess similar appealing traits. Why Vronsky specifically?
Philosopher Niko Kolodny and others propose that the shared history within a relationship provides the rational basis for love, solving the particularity problem. Vronsky met Anna at a specific train station, creating a unique shared history. However, unrequited love challenges this idea. Doesn’t unrequited love often spark at first sight or grow for someone we barely know? If love can exist without a reciprocal relationship, then the relationship itself cannot be the sole reason for that love.
This points to love’s arational nature. Therefore, while moving on might be pragmatically ‘better’ for a heartbroken individual, this rational consideration won’t simply make the love disappear. Love isn’t governed by practical reasons.
Some might argue that if love is causing harm, surely that’s reason enough to stop. Yet, even this powerful reason often fails to extinguish love. As Shakespeare suggested, love can persist ‘even to the edge of doom.’ Consider Sydney Carton in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Despite Lucie Manette’s love for another man, Carton’s love for her was so profound he sacrificed his own life for her beloved. This illustrates love’s unconditional nature, extending beyond rationality and self-preservation.
If you are experiencing unrequited love and recognize its arational and unconditional nature, perhaps feeling a renewed sense of despair, remember this: there are compelling reasons to embrace this experience. (This excludes abusive situations where love is manipulated). Unrequited love can be deeply painful, but it can also be a profound, even ‘exquisite torture.’ This exquisite aspect is worth acknowledging and understanding. Instead of desperately wishing for the love to end, consider embracing it, for however long it lasts. By embracing your unrequited love, its pain can transform.
What does embracing love truly mean? While love itself is arational, our attitude toward it can be a conscious choice. Rejecting our love can create internal conflict – we love, yet we fight against it. This internal struggle intensifies bitterness. However, adopting an attitude of affirmation can bring inner peace. Embracing unrequited love means affirming it: ‘I am in love, and that’s okay.’
You might worry if adopting this affirming attitude for ‘betterment’ is the ‘wrong kind’ of reason. Can we truly affirm something simply because it’s beneficial? You might think genuine affirmation requires genuine belief in the okayness of the situation. Fortunately, there’s a powerful, non-prudential reason to embrace unrequited love: its sublime nature.
Our capacity for arational, unconditional love is something to marvel at. Fragile beings as we are, we can experience a love that transcends reason and conditionality, touching something akin to the infinite. This echoes Immanuel Kant’s concept of the mathematical sublime. Kant described the sublime as something so immense, powerful, and beyond our control that it ‘indicates a faculty … which surpasses every standard of sense.’
To love is to demonstrate a capacity beyond sensory experience and even reason. The depth of our emotions, even in unrequited love, is a profound expression of our humanity. Our vulnerability to love, our relative helplessness before it, is perhaps central to what makes us human. As W.H. Auden wrote, ‘If equal affection cannot be, / Let the more loving one be me.’ Love, in its sublime nature, allows us to glimpse something beyond the phenomenal world, beyond what we can fully grasp.
Love defies our attempts to rationalize and control it. We seek reasons for love, wanting it to be sensible, yet it often resists our logic. Love isn’t a choice, yet it’s also something we do, not just something that happens to us. This inherent paradox reveals a deeper mystery about agency and selfhood. Exploring love, especially unrequited love, brings us to the edge of understanding ourselves, pushing the boundaries of practical reason. Love is sublime because it offers a glimpse into something supersensible, something beyond our everyday comprehension.
In essence, love – including its unrequited form – is exceptional. It can withstand anger, pain, and grief, enduring against all odds, existing in unexpected places and times. While the lack of reciprocation may sting, take solace in this: in loving, you are encountering something profound, something sublime. Don’t shy away from this precipice, but regard it with awe. Embrace the experience of love, in all its forms, for it reveals a unique and noble capacity within you. Romantic or not, returned or not, love is sublime and worthy of embrace because it illuminates your profound capacity to love, revealing, in a very real sense, Who Is Love You.
Alt text: A couple gazes out of a window, contemplating the complexities of love and relationships, symbolizing the bittersweet nature of unrequited affection.
