Unrequited Love Blog

I’ve been feeling melancholic again, missing Jessica or at least missing the feelings I used to have about her.  It’s funny, I definitely feel I’ve “fallen out of love” with her, but I still have a lot of feelings about her and about my love.  I don’t feel that feverish intensity, that craziness, that goes along with being in love.  Which is good, more or less.  I believe I see our interactions more clearly now, which is also good, more or less, but also sad because it seems more clear to me she wasn’t interested in me in “that way.”  She may have been sincerely flattered but I don’t think she was attracted to me.  There, I said it.  It’s painful but likely true.  I just hope I didn’t look ridiculous.  You know, like one of those professors you might think is a good lecturer and/or kind of funny, but would NEVER think of sexually or romantically, they just don’t have that kind of charisma or sexual energy.  Plus, the professor is so much older than you are, not to mention the wrong gender. <sigh>  Nothing I can really do about any of that.  I just hope she didn’t have to try too hard to keep from laughing at me, even if it was in a “nice” way.

Anybody know what I mean?  I’d really like to hear from other professors (of adult students only) who may have had similar experiences…

But I feel I still do “love” her, or have some sort of residual “in love” feelings, or something.  I still feel that I like her, and would like to spend time with her and get to know her better.  I still feel concerned about the financial debt her schooling is getting her into.  I still feel jealous thinking about her with her husband, or just as unavailable to me.  At those moments, my stomach hurts, I feel sad and kind of lost…also embarrassed, sometimes ashamed.  Ashamed of falling in love with someone who didn’t return my love.  My throat hurts.

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A frog is more than the makeup of legs, arms skin, and internal organs.  Similarly, love is more than the sum of its parts. I posted on the mystery or intuitive recognition associated with romantic love on the website (“On Frogs“). Here I’d like to write about my own intuitive recognition of what I loved or found attractive in Jessica.

I was drawn to her emotional resilience.  She gave me the impression of being sexually knowledgeable without being indiscriminate, and of being feminine without being too girly.  She tends to be a bit socially anxious which I found kind of charming.  She’s intelligent and good with language.  She’s concerned about others’ feelings without being “too” nice (nice to the point of being boring).  She’s psychologically minded.  I can’t really verbalize what I found physically attractive about her but it’s definitely there — voice tone, body language, nonverbal expressions, smile.  I couldn’t really think in words around her, could only fall back on instinct, intuition, the process of recognizing a complement to myself.

Please offer comments…

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Romance aside, or dead-and-buried, a post-hoc analysis of why I might have fallen in love with Jessica, in particular, follows.

Much of it likely had to do with timing.  I am disappointed in my marriage, sexually and emotionally.  I am feeling my age, feeling bored and isolated, wanting to be young again and generally experiencing a mid-life crisis.  A mid-life crisis that includes grief about not having children, so I fall for someone who is still young enough to bear children.  My Spouse tends to disagree with many of my psychological explanations for people’s behavior, despite asking me for my informed opinion.  Jessica seemed to think I knew what I was talking about.  She seemed to admire me and see me as competent or impactful.  She kept staring at me sort of wistfully, it pulled soft, romantic feelings from me.  She offered an intimacy of communication, of psychological-mindedness, that resonated with me.  Her being heterosexually identified (as far as I know), the power of crafting a seduction story was very appealing.  The admiration and romantic pull  made for a heavy dose of strong sexual attraction.  All these things came together in a way that made me view Jessica, a perfectly ordinary person, in an extraordinary light.  This is what Tennov called the process of  “crystallization” in love or limerance.

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You know those times when you think that you know what’s going on and no one else has a clue, only to find out later it’s really the opposite?  Well, now that the crazy part of being in love is dying down, I’m thinking how probably I was really obvious about my attraction to Jessica and everyone around saw it clearly (except, possibly, me).

I was thinking that I covered over my attraction to her during that last class pretty well, but in retrospect I think I probably didn’t fool anybody.  You know when you hold a balloon full of air and then let it go, and it goes flying around the room making weird noises until it finally runs out of air and flops, exhausted, to the floor?  That was pretty much me that last class.  How embarrassing.  I wonder if I got talked about after the semester ended by other students, like “Professor {my name} totally had a thing for Jessica Smith, she could hardly stand still around her.  And that girl was engaged!  And Professor {my name} was married! Hahahahahhaha”

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Well, yes.  Several times.  Not for quite a while, though.  Plus, I think you kind of forget what the experience really feels like when you’re outside of it, when you’re not in love.  Kind of like childbirth, you forget the pain so you can talk yourself into trying to have another one.

This love has stuck with me the longest past the “final contact.”  Being in love past the end of a relationship, or past the physical removal of proximity to my loved one, has generally lasted 6 months or so, maybe 8-10 for one woman.  This “in love” period for Jessica was around 17-18 months, much longer.  Not necessarily stronger than feelings of being in love with other women, but definitely longer.  I’m not sure why, I’ll think on it.

To me, being in love feels the same in a broad way, but the specifics can vary.  Like, being in love broadly involves strong sexual feelings, a desire for emotional connection through sex and in a multitude of other ways, feeling soft or vulnerable towards that person, feeling protective of that person, feeling possessive of that person.  But being in love with a particular person is nuanced and changes the “flavor” of the dish (or the patterns the lightning makes, or rhythm of the cresting waves, whatever metaphor you prefer).

Being in love with Jessica is bringing out dominant features of my love.  I feel more protective, much more possessive.  Although as I’ve mentioned in a previous post (“backstory“), not as much sexually possessive as emotionally possessive.  I want her to belong to me.  This is not necessarily how I’ve felt with past loves.  Something about Jessica or my feelings toward her brings out what I would call a mating instinct, a desire to let everyone around know she is mine, a desire to physically fight for her, to protect her, to make sure she gets through life safely, to increase my provider status by making more money, working harder and longer hours.  Some of my fantasies involve having babies but I would say the major focus is on me as a dominant provider rather than as a parent.

Now, undoubtedly this “mating instinct” nuance of my feelings is related to my mid-life crisis, feeling grief about not having children or a nuclear family, feeling older in general and wanting to be younger again.  However, I strongly feel these feelings are not complete projection on my part, but that something about the dynamic I felt with Jessica brings out these particular feelings.

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