Unrequited love

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Unrequited love is a love which is not reciprocated, one-sided or more generally unequal, resulting in a yearning for more complete love. [1] [2] [3] Lovesickness is the resulting mental state. [2] This might occur in a context where little or no relationship exists between the participants (even as in parasocial love for a celebrity), or it might occur inside a relationship with unequal love, commitment or effort. [1] [2] [4] Unequal (unrequited) love is more common than equal love. [1] Reciprocal love is called "redamancy". [5]

Contents

Unrequited love generally pertains to the romantic, passionate, infatuated, obsessive or limerent variety of love (also called "being in love"): a state which is conceptualized as a motivation or drive. [3] [4] [6] This state is commonly distinguished from other types of love: companionate love (or attachment) and compassionate love (or agape). [7] [6]

According to the psychologist Dorothy Tennov, the state of "being in love" is distinguishable from the many other uses of the word "love" (such as caring or concern), for: 'Affection and fondness have no "objective"; they simply exist as feelings in which you are disposed toward actions to which the recipient might or might not respond.' [8] The psychiatrist Eric Berne said in his 1970 book Sex in Human Loving that "Some say that one-sided love is better than none, but like half a loaf of bread, it is likely to grow hard and moldy sooner." [9]

Analysis

According to legend, the Greek poet Sappho fell from a rock out of unrequited love for the ferryman Phaon. Painting by Ernst Stuckelberg, 1897. Stuckelberg Sappho 1897.jpg
According to legend, the Greek poet Sappho fell from a rock out of unrequited love for the ferryman Phaon. Painting by Ernst Stückelberg, 1897.

Route to unrequited love

According to Roy Baumeister, what makes a person desirable is a complex and highly personal mix of many qualities and traits. Falling for someone who is much more desirable than oneself—whether because of physical beauty or attributes like charm, intelligence, wit or status—Baumeister calls "prone to find [its] love unrequited" and states that such relationships will not last. [10]

"Platonic friendships provide a fertile soil for unrequited love." [11] Thus the object of unrequited love is often a friend or acquaintance, someone regularly encountered in the workplace, during the course of work, school or other activities involving large groups of people. This creates an awkward situation in which the admirer has difficulty in expressing their true feelings, a fear that revelation of feelings might invite rejection, cause embarrassment or might end all access to the beloved, as a romantic relationship may be inconsistent with the existing association.

Rejectors

"There are two bad sides to unrequited love, but only one is made familiar by our culture" [12] —that of the lover, not the rejector. In fact, research suggests that the object of unrequited affection experiences a variety of negative emotions exceeding those of the suitor, including anxiety, frustration, and guilt. [10] As Freud pointed out, "when a woman sues for love, to reject and refuse is a distressing part for a man to play". [13]

Advantages

Dante looks longingly at Beatrice Portinari (in yellow) as she passes by him with Lady Vanna (in red) in Dante and Beatrice, by Henry Holiday Dante and beatrice.jpg
Dante looks longingly at Beatrice Portinari (in yellow) as she passes by him with Lady Vanna (in red) in Dante and Beatrice, by Henry Holiday

Unrequited love has long been depicted as noble, an unselfish and stoic willingness to accept suffering. Literary and artistic depictions of unrequited love may depend on assumptions of social distance that have less relevance in western, democratic societies with relatively high social mobility and less rigid codes of sexual fidelity. Nonetheless, the literary record suggests a degree of euphoria in the feelings associated with unrequited love, which has the advantage as well of carrying none of the responsibilities of mutual relationships: certainly, "rejection, apparent or real, may be the catalyst for inspired literary creation... 'the poetry of frustration'." [14]

Eric Berne considered that "the man who is loved by a woman is lucky indeed, but the one to be envied is he who loves, however little he gets in return. How much greater is Dante gazing at Beatrice than Beatrice walking by him in apparent disdain." [15]

"Remedies"

Roman poet Ovid in his Remedia Amoris "provides advice on how to overcome inappropriate or unrequited love. The solutions offered include travel, teetotalism, bucolic pursuits, and ironically, avoidance of love poets". [16]

Cultural examples

A wrapped, unopened Valentine's Day gift with heart-shaped helium balloons attached sits discarded in a dumpster. Unhappy Valentine.jpg
A wrapped, unopened Valentine's Day gift with heart-shaped helium balloons attached sits discarded in a dumpster.

Western

Eastern

Modern science

These paragraphs are an excerpt from Biology of romantic love § Emotional valence.[ edit ]

Rather than being a specific emotion itself, romantic love is believed to be a motivation or drive which elicits different emotions depending on the situation: positive feelings when things go well, and negative feelings when awry. [23] [24] [25] Reciprocated love may elicit feelings of joy, ecstacy, or fulfillment, for example, but unrequited love may elicit feelings of sadness, anxiety, or despair. [23] [26] A 2014 study of Iranian young adults found that the early stage of romantic love was associated with the brighter side of hypomania (elation, mental and physical activity, and positive social interaction) and better sleep quality, but also stronger symptoms of depression and anxiety. Those authors conclude that romantic love is "not entirely a joyful and happy period of life". [27] Romantic love may be either pleasant or unpleasant, regardless of the intensity level. [28] [29] One of Dorothy Tennov's interview participants recalls being in love this way: "When I felt [Barry] loved me, I was intensely in love and deliriously happy; when he seemed rejecting, I was still intensely in love, only miserable beyond words." [29] The intensity of love feelings is also distinct from whether an individual is satisfied with their relationship (although the measures have been shown to be related to some extent). One can be satisfied with their relationship because it fulfills some other need besides love for their partner (like money or child care), or conversely be in love with an abuser in an abusive relationship. [23]

Unrequited love is common among young adults, although what purpose it serves (if any) is not understood. In one study, 63% of respondents reported having a "huge crush" at least once in the past 2 years but not letting the person know, and unrequited love was four times more frequent than equal love. [30] Another study found that 92.8% of participants reported at least one "powerful or moderate" experience of unrequited love in the past 5 years. [31] In 2010, Helen Fisher, Arthur Aron and colleagues published their fMRI experiment investigating which areas of the brain might be active in recently rejected lovers. Participants had been in a relationship with their ex-partner for an average of 21 months, and then were post-rejection for an average of 63 days at the time of the experiment. [32] These participants reported spending more than 85% of their waking hours thinking of their rejector, reported a lack of emotional control, and exhibited unhappiness, with sometimes more extreme emotions like depression, anger, and even paranoia in pre- and post-interviews. [32] [33] Similar to other fMRI experiments, the scan while looking at a photograph of the rejecting partner showed activations in dopaminergic reward system areas, like the ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens. These activations were also stronger than in a previous experiment of participants who were happily in love. The nucleus accumbens, prefrontal cortex and orbitofrontal cortex which were active have been associated with assessing one's gains and losses, and areas of the insular cortex and anterior cingulate cortex which were active have been involved with physical pain and pain regulation (respectively) in other studies. [32] [34]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Bringle, Robert G.; Winnick, Terri; Rydell, Robert J. (2013-04-01). "The Prevalence and Nature of Unrequited Love". SAGE Open. 3 (2) 2158244013492160. doi:10.1177/2158244013492160. hdl: 1805/15150 . ISSN   2158-2440.
  2. 1 2 3 Money 1997 , p. 119, 132–133: "The English language lacked a noun singular for the state of being love smitten, or having fallen in love, until Dorothy Tennov (1979) coined the term, limerence, to fill the void. It is formally defined as follows:
    limerence (adjective, limerent)
    the personal experience of having fallen in love and of being irrationally and fixatedly love stricken or love smitten, irrespective of the degree to which one’s love is requited or unrequited.
    [...] Unrequited love is a synonym for unrequited limerence. It leaves a person vulnerable to an attack of lovesickness. Lovesickness may be transitory or prolonged, and major or minor in degree. It may be brought on by a person's anticipatory uncertainty about getting or not getting a reciprocal response to his/her limerence. Lovesickness may be brought on also by unequal proportions of limerence, for example, 100:70 instead of 100:100. The most unequal match is 100:0, total rejection.
    The formal definition of lovesickness (Money, 1986) is as follows.
    lovesickness
    the personal experience and manifest expression of agony when the partner with whom one has fallen in love is a total mismatch whose response is indifference, or a partial mismatch whose reciprocity is incomplete, deficient, anomalous, or otherwise unsatisfactory."
  3. 1 2 Baumeister & Wotman 1994 , p. 6: "Unrequited love refers to romantic, passionate love that is felt by one person toward another person who feels substantially less attraction toward the lover. It is not necessary that the object of unrequited love be thoroughly indifferent (or be negative and hostile [...]), for as we will see many rejectors do feel some friendship and liking for their admirers. But the discrepancy between liking and loving is apparent to all, and people in love typically find it quite inadequate to hear that the other likes them but fails to love them. We shall also use the term 'love' broadly, referring to any strong romantic attraction."
  4. 1 2 Langeslag, Sandra (2024). "Refuting Six Misconceptions about Romantic Love". Behavioral Sciences. 14 (5): 383. doi: 10.3390/bs14050383 . PMC   11117554 . PMID   38785874.
  5. ↑ Ash, John (1775). The New And Complete Dictionary Of The English Language: In Which All The Words are Introduced ... : To Which Is Prefixed, A Comprehensive Grammar; In Two Volumes, Volume 2. Dilly. Retrieved 12 June 2015.: "REDAM'ANCY (s. from the Lat. redamo to love those that love us, but not used) The act of reciprocal love."
  6. 1 2 Fisher, Helen E.; Aron, Arthur; Mashek, Debra; Li, Haifang; Brown, Lucy L. (2002-10-01). "Defining the Brain Systems of Lust, Romantic Attraction, and Attachment" . Archives of Sexual Behavior. 31 (5): 413–419. doi:10.1023/A:1019888024255. ISSN   1573-2800. PMID   12238608.
  7. ↑ Berscheid, Ellen (2010). "Love in the Fourth Dimension" . Annual Review of Psychology . 61: 1–25. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.093008.100318. PMID   19575626.
  8. ↑ Tennov 1999 , pp. 15–16, 71
  9. ↑ Berne, Eric (1970). Sex in Human Loving. Penguin. p. 130. ISBN   0-671-20771-7.
  10. 1 2 Goleman, Daniel (1993-02-09). "Pain of Unrequited Love Afflicts the Rejecter, Too". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-03-31.
  11. ↑ Spitzberg, p. 311
  12. ↑ "To love or be loved in vain: The trials and tribulations of unrequited love. In W. R. Cupach & B. H. Spitzberg (Eds.), The dark side of close relationships (pp. 307-326). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Carpenter, L. M. (1998)Spitzberg, p. 308
  13. ↑ Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession (London 1988) p. 9
  14. ↑ Mary Ward, The Literature of Love (2009) p. 45-6
  15. ↑ Eric Berne, Sex in Human Loving (Penguin 1970) p. 238
  16. ↑ A. Grafton et al, The Classical Tradition (2010) p. 664
  17. ↑ Y. B. Yeats, The Poems (London 1983) p. 155
  18. ↑ Pippin, p. 326
  19. ↑ Pippin, p. 326n
  20. ↑ W LaFleur, Awesome Nightfall (Boston 2003) p. 14-15
  21. ↑ H H Honda trans, The Sanka Shu (Tokyo 1971) p. 236-7
  22. ↑ G Maciocia, The Psyche in Chinese Medicine (2009) p. 136
  23. 1 2 3 Langeslag, Sandra (2024). "Refuting Six Misconceptions about Romantic Love". Behavioral Sciences. 14 (5): 383. doi: 10.3390/bs14050383 . PMC   11117554 . PMID   38785874.
  24. ↑ Aron, Arthur; Fisher, Helen; Mashek, Debra J.; Strong, Greg; Li, Haifang; Brown, Lucy L. (July 2005). "Reward, Motivation, and Emotion Systems Associated With Early-Stage Intense Romantic Love" . Journal of Neurophysiology . 94 (1): 327–337. doi:10.1152/jn.00838.2004. ISSN   0022-3077. PMID   15928068. S2CID   396612.
  25. ↑ Hatfield 1988, pp. 193–194, 197
  26. ↑ Hatfield & Walster 1985, p. 9
  27. ↑ Bajoghli, Hafez; Keshavarzi, Zahra; Mohammadi, Mohammad-Reza; Schmidt, Norman B.; Norton, Peter J.; Holsboer-Trachsler, Edith; Brand, Serge (August 2014). ""I love you more than I can stand!" – Romantic love, symptoms of depression and anxiety, and sleep complaints are related among young adults" . International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice. 18 (3): 169–174. doi:10.3109/13651501.2014.902072. ISSN   1365-1501. PMID   24611539.
  28. ↑ Hatfield & Walster 1985, pp. 58, 104
  29. 1 2 Tennov 1999, pp. 24, 44–45
  30. ↑ Bringle, Robert G.; Winnick, Terri; Rydell, Robert J. (2013-04-01). "The Prevalence and Nature of Unrequited Love". SAGE Open. 3 (2) 2158244013492160. doi:10.1177/2158244013492160. hdl: 1805/15150 . ISSN   2158-2440.
  31. ↑ Baumeister, Roy F.; Wotman, Sara R.; Stillwell, Arlene M. (March 1993). "Unrequited love: On heartbreak, anger, guilt, scriptlessness, and humiliation" . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 64 (3): 377–394. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.64.3.377. ISSN   1939-1315.
  32. 1 2 3 Fisher, Helen E.; Brown, Lucy L.; Aron, Arthur; Strong, Greg; Mashek, Debra (1 July 2010). "Reward, Addiction, and Emotion Regulation Systems Associated With Rejection in Love" . Journal of Neurophysiology. 104 (1): 51–60. doi:10.1152/jn.00784.2009. ISSN   0022-3077. PMID   20445032.
  33. ↑ Fisher 2004, pp. 155, 159
  34. ↑ Fisher, Helen; Xu, Xiaomeng; Aron, Arthur; Brown, Lucy (9 May 2016). "Intense, Passionate, Romantic Love: A Natural Addiction? How the Fields That Investigate Romance and Substance Abuse Can Inform Each Other". Frontiers in Psychology . 7: 687. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00687 . PMC   4861725 . PMID   27242601.

Bibliography

Further reading

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