Unrequited Love Blog

It occurs to me that there is no such thing as second place, or even a consolation prize, in love — you either win or you lose.  Even if you develop or maintain a friendship, unless you fall completely out of love with the person, friendship surely does not fill the space in your soul that Love had tenderly and hopefully created.

I have fantasies of friendship with Jessica, but there is always something else going on in the relationship.  The fantasy tends to run like we’re friends but she’s unhappy or unfulfilled in her marriage and slowly falls in love with me.  There is unremarked sexual tension, lots of sunlight, she likes my huge protective dog (which is a love-worthy feat all on its own, believe me), she hangs out in my condo a lot (nice, clean condo with dishwasher and attractive decor for those who have been reading this blog earlier), we talk a lot and get to know each other.

Sometimes the fantasy ends with Jessica being unwilling or unable to leave her husband, and I’m miserable.  Or she does leave and it’s a huge drama with hurt feelings (husband, parents) and anger (parents).  Either way, I either win or lose, but no consolation prize, I can’t maintain a consolation prize fantasy.

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Christ,  I am horny.  I just went online to craigslist looking for easy sex, with a man cause they are so much easier than women, and I started emailing back from an address that revealed my name, because I was in such a hurry to get laid. 

Spouse is refusing to let me out of marriage right now.  She wants me to support her through school, another year or so.  I don’t think I can make it!  She said I could have sex with others, since we are not married anymore, but then I am supposed to financially support her?  WTF!?  I think I must be retaliating.  Saga of a bad marriage.  Saga of a less-than-fully-conscious deprived romantic.

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I keep having vivid fantasies of me walking in on Jessica giving some (male) professor a blow job.  Like he’s someone I know and I am coming to tell him class is ready for him or whatever, and there they are. And she’s a grad student of his.  I don’t know where this stuff comes from, it’s just there, torturing me.

I become so enraged!  In the fantasy and in real life.  Because clearly it’s not that she’s too good to have extramarital sex, or it’s not that she’s 100% happy in her marriage, she just didn’t want me!  I feel stupid and alone and violently angry…

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I guess I’m getting mad because something still hurts. Even more now, maybe. I think of Jessica married and having kids and being happy and I just feel sick, sick and lonely. My chest hurts, I’m vaguely sick to my stomach. I see her becoming traditional, hardly ever going out, growing apart from her husband emotionally, bored at home with the baby. (Believe me, this is pretty much what happens in most marriages, according to my textbooks and according to my patients.) I see her husband simply not being able to offer her the level of emotional intimacy she wants, most men simply don’t work that way. Aside:  Of course, this part of the fantasy is ridiculous as well as self-serving, it’s unfair to characterize him as such a stereotype, I don’t know what he’s really like. Plus, I think about the men in my own life (brother, cousin, friends, patients) and I know they love, and love well, but just aren’t good at identifying their feelings and talking — it doesn’t mean they see the women in their lives as two-dimensional objects of ownership. Or another version of that fantasy that I spontaneously torture myself with involves her staying more active and engaged, having a successful career, becoming more self-confident, getting hit on by colleagues on a regular basis (which pisses me off to no end).  Either way, she is retreating into the distance, and I miss her, I swear I do.

But what the hell?  How real can this be at this point?  Even to begin with I barely knew this woman, didn’t talk or interact with her very much.  I know that I should recognize her as a fantasy that has very little to do with the actual person, but it doesn’t feel that way.  It still feels real. And I don’t understand why this love is hanging around so long.  Is this something I am doing to myself to push through my divorce?  Am I just prone to fantasy and she is my current favorite character?  What’s changed is that I don’t feel feverish and crazy, I’m not staying up nights unable to sleep, or unable to eat.  My mind isn’t focused on Jessica 99% of the time, the cognitive intrusiveness of love/limerence has faded considerably.  I don’t really feel “in love” but something remains, I’m just not sure what to call it — love, obsession, fantasy distraction, wounded pride, childhood disappointment?

What I can say with some degree of certitude is that as you get older, falling in love actually becomes more real, rather than less real.  You’re more able to see the other person in a realistic way, rather than placing him/her on a pedastel or looking to them to save you.  This deeper level of “real” to being in love also makes it hurt more, and I think, longer.

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I’m finally getting mad, which is good, or at least it’s honest.

To Jessica:

How dare you feel badly for me, or think the whole thing is “cute”!  I think you may have tried to talk to me after that class (but I’m really not sure, my brain was very confused at the time).  How dare you feel “flattered” and want to tell me that, want to “thank” me.  I’m not telling you a god-damned thing!  What, you want to talk to me so you can get the experience of being a liberal straight woman who gets an attraction from another woman and manages to handle it well? So you can feel all good about yourself, flattered, that you “did the right thing,” that you didn’t freak out, that you didn’t treat me much differently than you would have a man who was interested in you? All of which is basically true, but I’ll be damned if I’ll cooperate in your fantasy of being a good liberal.  You became so pleased and self-satisfied during that last class.  Underneath the “I’ll show her that I’m ok with it and that I’m flattered” veneer, you had a sense of pleasure and self-satisfaction that you got this strong sexual/emotional attraction from me, just another type of notch on your lipstick case, but of course you would never be so direct as to acknowledge that part openly.

You can just take those those mildly flattered feelings and trade them in toward a vanilla coke, ’cause I’m not interested in them.  You can just go, get married, have a couple of kids, move out to the suburbs, get fucked on Saturday night (maybe …  if he’s up for it), and go to church on Sunday just like every other self-congratulatory liberal who “used to live in the city.”

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