One-sided love: Great fodder for fiction, but is it really desirable?

Is it really healthy to trap yourself in a one-sided love? Never wanting to move on, never waking up to the practicalities of life. It sure makes for a heart-rending and inmensely touching story, but is it really desirable to live in such a state? Is it healthy to clutch on to an impossible dream all your life and miss out on real happiness that awaits you?

Originally posted by: krystal_watz

Is it really healthy to trap yourself in a one-sided love? Never wanting to move on, never waking up to the practicalities of life. It sure makes for a heart-rending and inmensely touching story, but is it really desirable to live in such a state? Is it healthy to clutch on to an impossible dream all your life and miss out on real happiness that awaits you?

Precisely. This is the sheer reason that prevents me from enjoying such tales to the fullest. It feels like indulging the promotion of unrealistic, rom-com-fuelled versions of love.

Originally posted by: CookieDough

I had a friend who was in a one sided love, it was frustrating to watch her in real life and there's still small amounts of frustration watching this on screen

It's not healthy at all nor does it seem admirable to me in real life. In the case that the person loves them self enough they will try and move on or get away from this person, if they don't then they feel the need to indulge in this love in order to survive or that their own feelings are enough for them to live on

Originally posted by: krackjack

Personally I don't connect with this feeling but as a third person, I can still put forward my thoughts.

Sometimes you might fall in love with a person and the other person might not reciprocate and at the end of the day you have no option but move on. Ya one would be stuck up for a certain period of time but eventually you have to get over it. It might still be a small part of your life but the intensity has to reduce otherwise one would start moving on the path of self destruction. What's the point in totally losing yourself in something without expecting absolutely nothing from it?

I don't even understand the idea of a love with no reciprocation at all, turning so intense that you are ready to burn yourself in it. I mean whatever that means. Relationships(excluding blood relations) we form over time are mutual and if they are one sided, they fade away and should fade away.

Originally posted by: NBT-BV

If I have understood u correctly - u mean is the love enough to live on. IMO - NO - after some time u may realise that you were following a mirage or trying to catch your shadow. The person you may love is unaffected while you have destroyed your life and bcoz of your frustrations may have spoiled other family or friendly relations.

Originally posted by: krystal_watz

Is it really healthy to trap yourself in a one-sided love? Never wanting to move on, never waking up to the practicalities of life. It sure makes for a heart-rending and inmensely touching story, but is it really desirable to live in such a state? Is it healthy to clutch on to an impossible dream all your life and miss out on real happiness that awaits you?

I absolutely agree that there is no point in continuously wanting someone who does not want to be with you. I have seen many people in these situations where love has fizzled out or where the two way love did not exist from the start and difficult it certainly is but they do eventually move on. The good news is that it is easier to come out of one-sided love because there is less to deal with. You just process your own feelings, and come out of your own spell. There are no love memories to forget and you just deal with your heartbreak and that's it, you move on to a better person.

Originally posted by: NBT-BV

You are right. I have been posting for a long time on this forum that love is a chemical and hormone reaction which induces a sense of pleasure (oxytoicin, serotins dopamine etc). These chemical secretions follow law of diminishing returns and eventually after2-3 years their effects fades away in two sided love and even marriage. The love and marriage survive because of other social bindings, kids, similar interests and trust as the case is with any other friendship.

I so agree with your scientific analysis, may this is the "spark" people talk about when it goes from a relationship. 😊