If you have never experienced the concomitant beauty and pain of unrequited love, then, indeed, you have never lived. The settings of the experiences that you recall do not matter, and it is, in fact, just the presence of that person which made the experiences worth remembering. It is overwhelming to think that someone means so much to you, it is so powerful and so compelling that it makes you think that it is right.
It fills you with a continual obsession, an unhealthy obsession for someone who is enchanting, but who you know, through sense, is not right. It drowns you in a spiral of self-pity, a self-pity that does not know why the infatuation is not returned, a self-pity that hopes it could be returned. It suffocates you in an unworthy hope, a hope that someday it could be returned, that someday it could be again like it was on the first and second times you met.
Every insignificant detail is recalled because you have believed that those insignificant details are satisfying to recall, but instead every aspect of them now welcomes a haunting of the past and facilitates its encroachment into your enjoyment of the present. In fact, it is not that person who means anything to you at all, it is the idea of that person which is worth something. The actions of that person, their sins against you and the inferiority they have expressed to you seem not to matter at all, because one can only think about the person at their best. The image of his perfection and his intellect is immortalised in the mind forever, and even though he and time destroy that idea every day, the idea is still perfectly preserved in your mind.
The only thing that did matter in the first place was your perception of that person’s mind. There are far more physically attractive people whose paths cross you every day. But your perception that he was incredibly intelligent and profoundly intellectual, and therefore in some way unique and special, is what drove the obsession and the craze. Instead of the excellence of beauty being appreciated in him, you appraised the idiosyncratic beauty, the idea that he looked different. In turn, one can begin to appreciate and appraise anything for its uniquity, despite its true worthlessness.
The burden of having to continually think of him becomes a strain, an impediment to your satisfaction which may otherwise be achieved. The worst part is that one continues to relapse with the unworthy hope, considering again and again, a long time later, that perhaps it could work.
It seems so wonderful to delight in the craze that he has instilled, a longing to live and a drive to change yourself because you think that one day he might like you because you have become a better person. It is hard for you to realise that he, too, remains forever with an idea of you, and that no matter how much you change, he still will only see the original identity of you. That identity of which he is now scared, from which he tries to run away, because you threaten to suffocate him with your desires, your hopes and your farfetched dreams.
You can only begin to see yourself as too passionate, because it seems somewhat justified to chase after him, because you think you want him, and that he will make you feel complete.
Interestingly, you can also remember the times you were especially alone, in those times the setting around you did matter because it made you reinspect upon the meaning of your own existence. Perhaps at one point you could even consider that you were strong enough to move forward and value yourself, and not return to sit inside the painful trap, but this notion was soon erased when you began to think of him again.
It becomes a cycle of busying yourself with a new love interest, who never seems to fully replace the original him, whereby you still think of him sometimes. And because you are never ready to let go of the idea of him, you never let these new people touch your soul, because you are convinced that no one could ever be as intellectually incredible or as unique has him. In-turn, it only stops you from replacing him. Discarding others only strengthens the idea of him, preventing others from ever being able to make you truly happy.
Then, one day you find someone new who you have little hope in, but you try it out. For a first, you attempt to discard the thought of him truly. It doesn’t really happen. But the memories are weaker. You are happier in the moment, and you seem to create new memories that are worth remembering. Sometimes, of course, you need to have a look back on the idea of him. But you must never indulge in the idea of him, otherwise you plunge into a vicious cycle of nostalgia.
Nostalgia is absolutely beautiful, so beautiful that you want to enjoy it all the time. But it is the absolute trap and the main impediment to your happiness in the moment. I do not need a movie to encompass my feelings, because I can express them myself. The days you go back to the very same places that you were with him hurt even more. Stepping back into the aura of the lobby of the InterContinental Düsseldorf, the warmth of the memories of December 2016 flow back and hit you, and the Christmas decorations are back in place. (You, too, have a hotel, which you have seen in every season, where the staff know your greed and the rooms know your secrets.) The receptionist hands you back the letter containing the 16-page envelope that you wrote for him, and you realise that he never bothered to pick it up. You are reminded of the unworthy hopes you had, you re-read the letter, and you relapse.
It does get better, but only if you make it better for yourself. Do not move on hopeful; move on with certainty. The memories are too idyllic to discard. Indeed, unrequited love never dies, and instead it fades, much like lives, which we cannot save, but which we can prolong. There is no someday maybe we would perhaps be friends, because it is not like that. Because the nostalgia is too beautiful that it needs to be relived. It is not quantum mechanics, hopes cannot be burning in passion and extinguished with disinterest at the same time... maybe the hopes can exist so in one’s optimistic mind, but between two realists, they cannot.
It fills you with a continual obsession, an unhealthy obsession for someone who is enchanting, but who you know, through sense, is not right. It drowns you in a spiral of self-pity, a self-pity that does not know why the infatuation is not returned, a self-pity that hopes it could be returned. It suffocates you in an unworthy hope, a hope that someday it could be returned, that someday it could be again like it was on the first and second times you met.
Every insignificant detail is recalled because you have believed that those insignificant details are satisfying to recall, but instead every aspect of them now welcomes a haunting of the past and facilitates its encroachment into your enjoyment of the present. In fact, it is not that person who means anything to you at all, it is the idea of that person which is worth something. The actions of that person, their sins against you and the inferiority they have expressed to you seem not to matter at all, because one can only think about the person at their best. The image of his perfection and his intellect is immortalised in the mind forever, and even though he and time destroy that idea every day, the idea is still perfectly preserved in your mind.
The only thing that did matter in the first place was your perception of that person’s mind. There are far more physically attractive people whose paths cross you every day. But your perception that he was incredibly intelligent and profoundly intellectual, and therefore in some way unique and special, is what drove the obsession and the craze. Instead of the excellence of beauty being appreciated in him, you appraised the idiosyncratic beauty, the idea that he looked different. In turn, one can begin to appreciate and appraise anything for its uniquity, despite its true worthlessness.
The burden of having to continually think of him becomes a strain, an impediment to your satisfaction which may otherwise be achieved. The worst part is that one continues to relapse with the unworthy hope, considering again and again, a long time later, that perhaps it could work.
It seems so wonderful to delight in the craze that he has instilled, a longing to live and a drive to change yourself because you think that one day he might like you because you have become a better person. It is hard for you to realise that he, too, remains forever with an idea of you, and that no matter how much you change, he still will only see the original identity of you. That identity of which he is now scared, from which he tries to run away, because you threaten to suffocate him with your desires, your hopes and your farfetched dreams.
You can only begin to see yourself as too passionate, because it seems somewhat justified to chase after him, because you think you want him, and that he will make you feel complete.
Interestingly, you can also remember the times you were especially alone, in those times the setting around you did matter because it made you reinspect upon the meaning of your own existence. Perhaps at one point you could even consider that you were strong enough to move forward and value yourself, and not return to sit inside the painful trap, but this notion was soon erased when you began to think of him again.
It becomes a cycle of busying yourself with a new love interest, who never seems to fully replace the original him, whereby you still think of him sometimes. And because you are never ready to let go of the idea of him, you never let these new people touch your soul, because you are convinced that no one could ever be as intellectually incredible or as unique has him. In-turn, it only stops you from replacing him. Discarding others only strengthens the idea of him, preventing others from ever being able to make you truly happy.
Then, one day you find someone new who you have little hope in, but you try it out. For a first, you attempt to discard the thought of him truly. It doesn’t really happen. But the memories are weaker. You are happier in the moment, and you seem to create new memories that are worth remembering. Sometimes, of course, you need to have a look back on the idea of him. But you must never indulge in the idea of him, otherwise you plunge into a vicious cycle of nostalgia.
Nostalgia is absolutely beautiful, so beautiful that you want to enjoy it all the time. But it is the absolute trap and the main impediment to your happiness in the moment. I do not need a movie to encompass my feelings, because I can express them myself. The days you go back to the very same places that you were with him hurt even more. Stepping back into the aura of the lobby of the InterContinental Düsseldorf, the warmth of the memories of December 2016 flow back and hit you, and the Christmas decorations are back in place. (You, too, have a hotel, which you have seen in every season, where the staff know your greed and the rooms know your secrets.) The receptionist hands you back the letter containing the 16-page envelope that you wrote for him, and you realise that he never bothered to pick it up. You are reminded of the unworthy hopes you had, you re-read the letter, and you relapse.
It does get better, but only if you make it better for yourself. Do not move on hopeful; move on with certainty. The memories are too idyllic to discard. Indeed, unrequited love never dies, and instead it fades, much like lives, which we cannot save, but which we can prolong. There is no someday maybe we would perhaps be friends, because it is not like that. Because the nostalgia is too beautiful that it needs to be relived. It is not quantum mechanics, hopes cannot be burning in passion and extinguished with disinterest at the same time... maybe the hopes can exist so in one’s optimistic mind, but between two realists, they cannot.
