And then there’s another kind of love: the cruelest kind. The one that almost kills its victims. It’s called unrequited love. –Iris Simpkins, The Holiday

When I was younger, I used to imagine that all of life was a romance novel. I used to foresee my life turning out like an Ashley Judd romantic comedy. (I particularly like the one with Hugh Jackman and Greg Kinnear. Mostly because she has my dream job, lives in New York City, and has super cute clothes. Plus, her onscreen best friend is Marisa Tomei. How perfect and adorable is that woman?)

I just knew that one day, I would be wearing cute jeans and wedges, sitting at a trendy little coffee shop when all of a sudden, I come up from my latte when BAM! The proverbial Hugh Jackman walks up to me, shamelessly hitting on me and begging me to go to Serendipity with him. And then, I find him despicable and annoying for two hours until we fall in love in the end. Then we smooch all fairy-tale like as the taxis pass us by.

I’m not joking. I really believed that’s how things went. Little spurts of eating ice cream in bed, dancing on ice skates at Rockefeller Center until Kate Beckinsale falls and scrapes her beautiful, little, freckled elbow. Elaborate fragments of dimples over a sipped martini, snuggling in the nude under unbelievably clean, crisp, white sheets. Cocktail dresses, perfect five o’clock shadow, suits and ties, and adorable little romantic twists.

Friends. More than friends. Sexy kiss. Engagement. Marriage. Blah, blah, blah.

But let’s be real: that’s not real life. Not in the slightest! Real life is complicated and busy. It’s scary and smoggy, and no one looks adorably attractive in the misty rain. It takes work, and arguments don’t get solved with a smirk and a chuckle. People break things, break up, and get divorced. Feelings get hurt, lies get exchanged and partners betray each other. And the worst part of real life? Sometimes those romantic feelings aren’t returned and those individuals who you find so wonderful, well… they find you lest wonderful.

Unrequited love, friends. Just the thought of it is terrifying. Imagine it: putting all those emotions and effort into someone just to have them tell you they don’t love you back? How painfully tragic.

(Watch and observe the relationship between Iris and Jasper in The Holiday as a reminder of those awful feelings. Terrible. I want to punch Jasper in his perfect, handsome face!)

Because what’s worse than knowing you want something, besides knowing you can never have it? –James Patterson

When I was in 7^th to 9^th grade, I had this tiny, little crush on this boy a year older than me. (Okay, considering it was three years worth of crazy crushing, it obviously wasn’t that little. It was more like I was shamefully obsessed until I realized that he was a short, swarthy, little twerp who, like every other men I’ve apparently ever met, had an equally huge crush on my sister. (In case you haven’t guessed, this whole “everyone wants my sister” thing has been a pretty predominant theme in my life…)

Anyway, I had this huge crush on him. I got all nervous around him whenever he talked to me and we’re talking 13 year old nervous. So it was bad. Like really, really bad. (I mean, I’m awkward now, at 27. Can you just imagine what I was like at 13?) And it only got worse because not only did he think my sister was hot, but it wasn’t long before he started moving in on my middle school best friend. Granted, she was adorable and had figured out how to flirt properly pretty early on (… I still haven’t quite figured that out. I’m more of a, “Let me get you a bourbon and make you dinner” kinda gal…) but still. It was awful. Just devastating.

I mean, we are talking serious sadness here. I remember in middle school, the big thing before cell phones was phone calls. (Can you imagine? Tell me I didn’t just seriously date myself?) And not just regular phone calls but three way ones with flash, teenaged emotions, and tiny broken hearts. I obviously three way called my crush with my best friend. The plan was for me to stay silent while she asked him open ended questions about me. I don’t know why I was expecting things to be in my favor but his comments were relatively unsatisfactory. I don’t remember what was said but I do remember lying in bed with the cordless extension, silently crying and wishing for straight hair and eyeliner.

It sucked. And my life stayed like that until I was about twenty.

She hated that she was still so desperate for a glimpse of him, but it had been this way for years. –Julia Quinn

And then the world took a little pity on me. It was my senior year concert FBA (for those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s the Florida Bandmaster’s Association. High School bands compete from all over the district and get a rating of Superior (!), Excellent, or Good. It’s kind of a big deal for band kids…) and guess who was backstage visiting his younger brother during his weekend away from college…?

And I looked, no joke, AMAZING. I was finally out of that ugly, awkward stage that seemed to linger on forever. My mom had taken me to Dillard’s to get my colors done, I had great, olive skin, natural curls, and D cups. And guess, JUST GUESS, who tried to talk to me?

Even though my heart was pounding, I contemplated giving him a concussion because inside, I was the same person. I just wore push up bras and gained a tiny waist line. I put blush on my German freckles and slapped on some mascara. And NOW he wanted to talk to me?

Girl, please.

(I think he even gave me his number… As if I’d even use it after years of him blowing me off. No. I wish that it had happened now so I could be a hot, bitter bitch to him all over again. I could be all like, “Sorry, Pal. I’m married to some hot Portuguese man who tickles my feet on the daily.”)

Moral of the Crazy: While it can be really unfortunate and produce long periods of depression, unrequited love can occur. And it doesn’t seem fair when you think about it because you can’t control your feelings. You don’t get to pick who you love. (Especially if you live in those countries where they still do arranged marriages.) It’s just one of those things that doesn’t make any good sense.

I mean, you lay eyes on someone in the elevator, you fall in love while the crappy elevator music plays and then when you make a move, they’re all, “I’m not interested.” What a joke, am I right? Just grab me a pink striped straw and a flask full of whiskey…

But sometimes, no matter how many creepy, bold gestures you make, they just don’t love you back. Despite the green eyes and the curious neuroses, they go for your best friend or your sister. Hey, it happens. You love them but they don’t love you, for whatever stupid reason.

But maybe that’s because the world has bigger things in store for you. Maybe one bad series of rejections is only meant to set you up for something infinitely better. Maybe that’s what the whole, “Good things come to those who wait,” thing is about. All that pain of unrequited love is just a precursor to a lifetime stint of happiness.

And there has to be something said about engaging in such an unrequited love for too long. Clinging to something that never gives you anything in return could cause you to miss out on something potentially brilliant. If your heart is drenched with the love of another person, if you’re absorbed by someone who doesn’t love you back, how are you going to recognize real love when it’s right in front of you?

You’re not, that’s how. How could you ever give someone else that much power over you?

So don’t waste your time on unrequited love because you can send a boy to college but you can’t make him think. And you don’t need to make room in your life for people who don’t do the same for you. And once you let go of that unrequited love, you’ll realize that this whole time, there was a world of handsome men just begging to be in the same room as you.

Take that, 7^th grade crush.

To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves. –Federico Garcia Lorca