Unrequited Love Blog

I’m thinking this will be my final post on this blog.  It seems a good day for it, I have a sore throat and a fever so I’m kind of out of it and have more distance on everything.

What to say?  Jessica just feels so far away from me now.  She’s probably had kids or will be having them shortly, probably has moved, is surely further along in her career.  I still think about her and miss her but I can’t continue to focus on her.

So what has it all meant?  It was very difficult for me to recognize and admit that I was in love with Jessica, and it was very difficult for me to see that her not loving me back didn’t have to be a tragedy.  To see that the meaning of this love falls somewhere in between — in between crush/limerence and committed love is real romantic love, in between comedy and tragedy are real non-hyperbolized feelings, in between labels of “can’t live without her love” and “of little consequence” is “vitally important.”  My ability to feel and recognize my love has been vitally important for me.  It has served as a catalyst for change in my life — my divorce, re-evaluating what I am looking for in a relationship, taking more risks, becoming more engaged with life.

So why was this experience so intense for me?  Did I love Jessica more than other women, unrequited or within a relationship?  No, not really.  Did the love feel different in substantial ways?  Well, sort of.  The physical and psychological “symptoms” of being in love are pretty consistent with all my previous experiences.  But the longing, sense of grief, and edge of desire were much stronger with this one.  Overall, it somehow felt more “real” to me.  Probably simply because I am older, more self-aware, more confident, more ready for an experience that envelopes all of the qualities of love — strong desire, sustained intimacy, and responsibility or purposefulness.

I hope I fall in love again, I hope I fall in love with someone who loves me back.  But even if I don’t fall in love again or get what I want, this experience has been meaningful and worth it.  Although I hope I never fall in love with another student or otherwise unavailable person, it’s just too disappointing and painful.   My love for Jessica has been real, has been fun, but it hasn’t been real fun.

Thanks for listening…

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So, why didn’t I declare my love or at least my sexual/emotional attraction more clearly to Jessica?  Straight-forward question, complicated answer.  It was a delicate situation due to her recent status as a student of mine.

One part of the answer is I felt I did what I could, said what I could.  I waited until after the end of the semester, then emailed with the subtext of trying to start a conversation or identify any interest on her part.  I felt confident she knew of my attraction and interest, knew I was sort of knocking on the door, and replied with the subtext of “no thanks, i’m not available/interested.”  Considering she was a former student, it was probably most prudent for me to retain this level of discretion.  Therapist also reinforced this level of discretion, although we were discussing it when it was memory, not a current situation.

Also, I didn’t want to be offensive or pushy because I knew she was engaged, because I was her former teacher, because I don’t want to be intrusive in general.  As I’ve said, I really had to fight with myself not to contact her again after my last email.  I really wanted to, and went back and forth about it for 3-4 weeks.  But I didn’t want to freak her out, and I felt she had already said “no,” and…

…I was afraid.  Afraid of rejection, afraid of what she might have to say to me to get me to “get it.”  Afraid of hearing how she really felt, whatever that may have been. What did she really feel, or how did she really see me?  Did she think I was kind of interesting as a teacher, but really not sexually or romantically attractive ?  Did she think I was interesting as a teacher, and reasonably attractive, but she is sooo straight she could never see me in any other light?  Did she think it was cute that I was so nervous around her, but became offended or embarrassed when I hinted in emails and tried to start a conversation?  Would she have said something like “I had no idea you were interested, I didn’t realize I was staring at you so much.  I’m sorry and I didn’t mean to lead you on, but no, I’m really not interested, you’re not my type, I’m very happily engaged.  And to be honest, you’re a good teacher and I like you, but not my favorite teacher, I really liked {Professor Hot Guy}.”  Well, she probably wouldn’t have actually said the last one, but I bet it’s true nonetheless!

But all in all I wish I had talked with her, told her something.  Not necessarily that I was in love with her, but I wish we had had a conversation about what was going on, about how I felt, how she felt.  But I just wasn’t ready for it at the time.  I didn’t even allow myself to become fully conscious of my feelings until after the end of the semester, and the email exchanges seemed an awkward lead in at best to that type of conversation…I really wasn’t sure how she was reacting to the emails — positive, negative, neutral?  So, I let it go, and didn’t say anything, and now I wish I had…

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“The Mississippi’s mighty, but it starts in Minnesota, at a place you could walk across with five steps down…And I guess that’s how you started, like a pinprick to my heart, but now you rush right through me and I start to drown…”  Ghost, The Indigo Girls

So, when did it really start?  The first time I saw Jessica?  No.  The first time I spoke to her, or she to me?  No.  The first time I was really aware of being sexually attracted to her?  No, long before that.  The last month or so of class, when burgeoning self-awareness surfaced?  No, long before that.

It’s hard to identify when my feelings really began.  I mean, I can identify what I call the point of falling in love (Jessica just walking across the classroom, saying hi to me, and me becoming acutely aware of my attraction to her).  But I was not consciously aware of falling in love at the time, I only recognized being in love after the semester ended.  Looking back, I can identify that moment in time as a sort of falling over the edge of the cliff.

But I had felt the pull, or tug, of love for a long time before that.  I’ve begun thinking about when that love may have started, or at least when what eventually became love first began to pull on me.  Certainly, I felt it building during that whole semester, a sort of heightened interest in her, which of course I expressed by ignoring her.

Jessica was in another class of mine about two years prior to this one.  I don’t remember a whole lot from that class.  But I do recall feeling a sort of very low level pull toward her, just a barely perceptible heightened interest.  I remember a man in class who was interested in her, saying out loud in general “I’m not seeing anybody, how about you, Jessica?”  And she sort of widened her eyes, and said something like “Yes, I’ve been seeing someone for two years now.”  The guy goes “Oh….is it serious?” Jessica goes “Well, it’s sort of serious.  We’re not engaged or anything, but we’ve been living together for about two years.”  The guy said “oh”, looked disappointed.  I remember feeling such empathy for him and thinking to myself ouch, poor guy.  Later in the semester, or maybe earlier, I can’t quite remember, Jessica was talking about being at the Pride Parade and a student (it may have been the same guy, but I don’t know) goes “Jessica?  You’re gay?  Or bisexual?” and her eyes widened and turning away she said “Well, no, neither one actually…my boyfriend and I just like going, we think it’s fun!”  I felt amused and thought Well, she handled that pretty well. I remember when she nervously asked me about her topic for her paper, and I remember feeling kind of disappointed when she didn’t want my feedback on the paper after the end of class.  I pushed the disappointment away.  Individually, none of these recollections is particularly important or meaningful, but taken all together, I believe it indicates an interest in Jessica that I simply did not allow myself to be fully aware of.

In the next class, two years later, I barely remembered her.  Consciously.  But it’s funny to remember that even very early in the semester, I think around the third class meeting, Jessica was absent and I remember feeling kind of sad and wistful, and thinking I’m not going to see her today. I remember trying to talk with her before class and she kept referring to this other professor whom she clearly admired in more than one way, and I thought Ok, she doesn’t really seem to want to talk to me. When a conversation amongst a few students took place in front of me, and it became clear Jessica was engaged, I remember kind of thinking oh well, that’s that and feeling sad.  I remember sort following behind her like a puppy, going to a seminar, then apparently staring at her like a, well, like a lovestruck idiot, and others sort of noticing.  Then I noticed them noticing, and thought oh, was I staring?, felt embarrassed and looked down.  But again, I really wasn’t conscious of what I was doing, I was just doing it.  All of these thoughts were sort of conscious and unconscious at the same time.  I just wasn’t spending any time with them, didn’t put them together, didn’t allow myself to dwell on these thoughts and feelings at all.

Looking back, I can’t identify exactly when love started, only that it did start, and grew and grew and grew until it wasn’t containable anymore and spilled over and through my heart’s defenses.  What-would-become-love began with an imperceptible pinprick, then grew and grew, slowly and quietly but purposefully, until I fell over the edge and was truly fully in love.

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I think I have a few more posts left in me, then I’m probably going to close down this blog.  I’ll still leave it up for others to access, but I don’t anticipate contributing many new posts, if any, to it anymore.  (I’ll continue to work on the website, though).

In case I haven’t communicated my conflicted feelings very well, let me just say that sometimes when I’m away from this blog I have strong urges to immediately delete these embarrassing and vulnerable self-disclosures.  I think “What was I thinking?!  That was really a bad idea, you need to shut it down right now before people actually figure out who the hell you are.”  When I’m away from it, I see my behaviors as more adolescent and obsessive.  I truly regret my intrusive use of the internet.

But what doesn’t appreciably change is my evaluation of my feelings.  I still say I fell in romantic love with Jessica, I mean it brought me to my knees.  I don’t love her the way we use the word to communicate commitment and intimate knowledge of a person, I don’t really know her.  But I was in love with her for quite a while.  It’s hard to know exactly when you cross the line from being in love, to having been in love.  I’m not sure there is a clear boundary.  Like everything else in life, it’s a gradation, an attenuation of feeling that doesn’t ever fully go away.  It just becomes less all-consuming, I have become less possessed.

I’d like to post on the following topics before I close down:  why this “nice Catholic girl” type, how did I decide it was love vs. a crush, why didn’t I pursue her more openly or make a  clear declaration of love/affection/desire, was I attracted to her or did I feel something for her in an earlier class we had together…

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