I was going to post this as a hypothetical but thought people would see right through it.
Six years ago I was asked to take part in the Sir Charles Court Young Leaders Program - what was essentially a three day camp involving 30 gifted Year 10 students from around the state.
As a uni student I was asked to volunteer my time as a peer tutor, meaning I supervised a group of six of the students as they went through the course.
It was quite obvious from day one that one of those students had a crush on me - she made no attempt to hide it - and although I thought she was cute, she was 15, I was 18, I had a girlfriend and so legally and morally it was a non issue.
So anyway, six years on, I'm at a concert with my current girlfriend who sees a friend of hers - that's right, this girl turned out to be quite good friends with my girlfriend. When she saw me at first she knew she recognised me but wasn't sure where from.
When I told her, she was speechless. She honestly couldn't talk to me, she was so embarrassed that she had actually seen me again all those years on in a social situation.
We all had a laugh about it and the incident was mostly forgotten.
Then, in a similar social situation, we saw her again on the weekend.
She was still a bit funny about talking to me, but was markedly better.
We had a bit of a chat and my girlfriend commented how "funny" it was seeing the two of us interact.
Which made me thinking about the cliched topic of unrequited love.
We've all had people in the past that we have "liked" or "had a crush on" but, for some reason or another, never actually got together with. I remember a girl I worked with in my first job at Dewsons, who always seemed to be single when I had a girlfriend and vice versa.
I guess the question is, can 'unrequited love' ever be fulfilled?
I guess if it's meant to, it will (see the brilliant but welp-ish romantic comedy Serendipity) but I just wonder if stuff like this happens to everyone.
Will things like this always pop up throughout people's lives, whether they're single, married or with children? And what do you do about it?
Or, is it called unrequited love for that very reason - that although at some time the two of you may have hit it off, the stars of the universe have so aligned that the time will never be right for those two people?
5 comments:
Well I've had a not-similar-at-all experience with a certain teenage crush of mine. He was my brother's arsty friend with Buddy Holly glasses and I harboured a crush on him for quite seriously about 4 years. We always got on well but I always assumed he was well out of my league, being older and much smarter than I. He moved to Melbourne while I was overseas a few years ago but I recently ran into a friend of his at a party and admitted my long-term crush. "Oh," said my crush's friend, "I think he really liked you."
Nooooooo! damn you universe.
I have a friend like that - we are still in contact, drift in and out of each other's lives once or twice a year. After 9 years there's no way we could be anything more than just friends who pop in and out of each other's lives now and again. It would be too weird. When you have a friend for long enough I think you want to keep it the way it is.
In terms of unrequited love, I just finished reading love in the time of cholera and it's about just that. The dude waits 51 years for the woman and they're in their 70s/80s when they finally get together.
Oh and I meant to say that as far as what you do about it... eh I guess nothing. If I was single and he reappeared in my life I might think otherwise but, many years on, I've probably built the whole thing up in my head so much that it would be more like going out with the idea of a person than with an actual human being.
hmm, yeah i agree. you could always cling on to the "what if" argument but at the end of the day, it probably didn't happen for a reason...
Exactly. The 'in your mind' relationships are so awesome because they never involve the shite stuff. Plus in my imaginary relationships everyone's naked. Constantly.
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