Unrequited Love Blog

I’ve been thinking of putting another post on this blog for a while, a sort of update on what’s been going on and how I’ve been feeling since July 2009, about a year ago when I made the “final” entry on the blog.

So, what’s changed? Well, for one thing I feel like more of an idiot.  I believe I was in love with Jessica, but I now take that set of feelings less seriously or less intensely.   The whole thing feels much more like something that happened to me in the past, and not something that is currently happening to me.  When I think about Jessica now, it’s the memory of love that I feel, rather than the experience of being in love.   And I was in love with her, but did not know her enough to love her.  I might have been able to love her, I certainly wanted to love her, but I didn’t have the opportunity to really love her.

Unrequited Love.  It’s just a bizarre, bizarre set of feelings.  Being in love feels like having a fever dream, during the most intense part of it everything seems much more vivid, colors more intense, feelings more acute, yet everything has a sense of unreality or surrealism to it at the same time.  I had vivid, intense, intrusive images and thoughts, almost like a PTSD reaction, but positive rather than negative in emotional tone.  My head was preoccupied with a ceaseless whirlwind of thoughts about Jessica all the time.  During the height of love’s intensity I felt love for many people around me, for strangers, for the world — it all spilled over from being in love.  But there was also a sharp edge of pain, of disappointment, that would rise up unexpectedly.  All the feelings just sort of rushed up in me and out of me, like I was picked up by a giant, invisible whirlwind, possessed by a djinn, then deposited on the side of road exhausted, depleted, and left with a lingering sense of grief.

Whatever this blog and the associated website say about me, they say.  If I seem obsessive, immature, pathetic, socially awkward or “off,” so be it.  I can’t take the whole blog back, and I really don’t want to.   I mean, I don’t really want to be perceived in those ways, it’s embarrassing, sometimes humiliating and shameful; but this blog IS a personal truth of mine, it’s pretty honest.  So if that’s who I am, it’s who I am.

I truly regret causing Jessica any discomfort, or creating any awkwardness between us, as we are bound to meet casually at some future point.  I truly regret making my feelings or attraction clear to her at all, it must have been weird and uncomfortable.  Most students don’t want professors to seem out of control around them , or seem overly vulnerable.  Students want to be able to rely on professors to set boundaries.  I regret asking her to deal with my feelings in any way, even though it was (I thought) relatively subtle and indirect.  But I also think that I must have wanted her to know, on some level.  I was so classically obvious in the last class — dilated pupils, stuttering, nervous, confused, agitated, weak in the knees — who wouldn’t see this as a declaration or at least display of love?  It seems my unconscious just took the choice away from me and showed my love despite my best intentions.  I don’t know why it happened to me, but it did feel out of my (conscious) control.  I don’t know why I would do this to myself — fall in love with a straight, engaged/married former student and drive myself crazy.  I mean, I know I did do it to myself on some level, and I don’t know why I felt the need to be so punishing.  Perhaps I needed to punish myself for seeking a divorce.  Or maybe I needed to fall in love with someone who I could love without taking any action, so I could try out whether I really wanted to end my marriage or not.

Regarding my divorce and life in general, I just feel overwhelmed — more than half my life is over and it’s not where I want it to be.  I wonder if I’m too old to try and start over, if I’m being (unbeknownst to myself) ridiculous in thinking I can date women in their 30s without looking, well, ridiculous.  I’m very overwhelmed with thinking of selling the house and moving out.  The market is terrible, I don’t want to lose money, but I don’t want to keep living there.  I’m painfully aware of every second I lose not being out dating, moving back to the city, crafting a new life.  Yet I believe I need to be in the best financial position possible to start dating.  Also, I can tell Spouse is hoping the split won’t happen, that I’ll change my mind, she says as much.  So, I’m being emotionally irresponsible by continuing to stay and/or not making clear and rapid moves toward changing the relationship.  And, still, am I making a bad decision?  I’m in a relationship where I’m loved, and I love Spouse in return — what more can I expect to find?  My continued decision to divorce is, at this point, based on feeling I simply cannot live with Spouse’s messiness, cannot live with her lack of motivation, feeling we don’t have enough common interests such as outdoor recreation or going out in general, and it would be nice to be in romantic love with someone who loved me back the same way.

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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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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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I’m feeling better today, more hopeful, and more “not-in-love” with Jessica.  I’m seeing her as more of a fantasy, or a woman I had a crush on, than anything else.  I’ve definitely felt differently in the past, even recent past, and I may feel differently again.  But for now, I feel

1. ridiculous for still thinking about Jessica
2. ridiculous for hoping she had ever continued to think about me
3. mildly pleased at fond memories of my interactions with this young woman
4. sorry that I wrote this blog.  I think it’s a pretty good one, and it’s helpful to me, but I feel embarrassed at all the personal stuff I’ve put out there, at how immature or obsessive I might sound.

Maybe this is because of changes going on at home.  My spouse made us take off our wedding rings last night, so we’re not wearing them anymore.  I have mixed feelings about this, but I wonder if it is playing into my feeling better and hopeful.  Also, the weather is great today, sunny and warmish, after a long time of cool, grey weather.  So, I’m looking forward more to what I might be able to make of my life now.  And also feeling anxious about my ability to make any real, lasting changes.  It’s always a mixed bag.

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I just don’t want to let go. I really should at this point. And to be honest, my body is ready to let go of being in love, so to speak. Meaning I don’t have most of the symptoms of being in romantic love (intrusive thoughts/fantasies, can’t sleep or eat, nervousness, extreme preoccupation).

I think I’m kind of hanging on to my feelings and memories about Jessica because I want to avoid the pain and emptiness of my upcoming divorce. And I really need to let go of her because she really is married and will likely be pregnant any day now, etc.

More to the painful point, she’s not secretly online looking up unrequited love and reading this blog, despite all my fantasies to the contrary.  More to the painful point, she’s probably really in love with her husband (just like she said she was), despite all my fantasies to the contrary. More to the painful point, I’m probably really looking pathetic on this blog, despite my fantasies of looking world-weary and self-aware.

I’m probably going to have to go through a long period of feeling empty, depressed, lonely, disillusioned, during and after my divorce. And it will be a while before I’m really able to even begin to see another woman in a romantic light.

Fuck this shit.  At least if I were straight I’d have more options for dating, numbers-wise.

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