Seriously Single Part VII: Go Get 'Em Tiger!

Sometimes I think we never get what we want most. We’re shown it but we may never get it. It can be frustrating, a lot of work and gruelling. But humans are strange creatures and rarely do we chuck it in, give it up, throw in the towel, and quit, not until the very end when we realise it’s all been a fruitless task and we are more fatigued than that blonde chick who thinks it’s a fabulous idea to swim the English channel.




I’m talking of course about trying to win someone who doesn’t want to be won. Even though you of course think that’s bullshit because you think anyone can possibly be won. Not true. Why the hell do we do it? I think we’re taught to do it by the ‘teev’ personally. Fight and struggle for people, that is. Go for gold, so to speak. We are told we can have whatever we want aren’t we? We simply just have to go after it that’s all. I’ve seen all the bank ads.


Television and movies can really be quite evil for idealists, even though they are fucking fully amusing to the bona fide cynics of the world. The cynics just sit there watching and saying out loud, accompanied by a huge guffaw, “Oh yeah, as if that would happen? A happy ending?”


While the rest of us dab at our eyes with a tissue and whisper, “Oh how lovely and sweet,” to the person sitting beside us or the cat, whatever, we don’t care it’s beautiful.


But I think that the actual difference between real life and movies (and thank God really because I’d be in real trouble if I couldn’t tell the difference) is that the whole process is so much slower in real life. There isn’t this ‘moment’ where the person you are trying to woo pulls up in their car (for example), steps out and looks up to see you standing there and suddenly realises and knows beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they love you too and oh so completely. There isn’t an intense meeting of the eyes and a running in slow motion instalment to the other person to fall into their arms for a hug and a pash that seals the moment forever. No there’s not.


It’s so much fucking slower than that. It can be so gradual and it may not even happen at all even though it’s been so close that you’ve felt it breathing down your neck once or twice (usually after the ‘wooee’ has consumed quite a bit of alcohol and think they have feelings for you or right before they… well you know if you are sleeping with them).


I mean look at that movie ‘Titanic’ (sorry to bring that up). Leonardo and Kate had one day together. One, and she loved him for the rest of her life? He probably would have loved her for the rest of his life too if he hadn’t been such an idiot and had simply worked out that if he’d only laid on top of her while she floated on that piece of board that it would have balanced and he would have lived too, I mean there’s thinking! No wonder chivalry is dead. It’s stupid. Polite but stupid.


At least ‘The Thorn Birds’ was closer to the truth, although extreme. It took about 60 years for Father Ralph to realise he should have chosen love and he died two minutes after it dawned on him. What a fucking waste and how unbelievably frustrating. Talk about an extreme case of Murphy’s fucking Law.


One can become quite obsessed with another person if they are striving to win them I think. I have often wondered whether part of the attraction with this person is merely the thrill of the chase. We want what we can’t have. It’s a challenge. What fun is there if they fall over with their legs in the air?


Well some fun initially I guess but after that?


We naturally tell ourselves that it isn’t just that at all when we are doing it but I have tired of relationships early in if my real reason for wanting them was not exactly for the right reasons. It was because someone (I have no idea who) has told me they are untouchable. Huh, I’ll show them.


The biggest lesson I have learned in life about other people and love is that just because you love someone, incredibly it does not mean they will love you back. It is not mandatory. There is no obligation or written rule saying, ‘Thou must love back.’ Unrequited love is a phrase because it’s true.


Occasionally though, it does work and you can win the one you love, eventually. Sometimes you need to go through a lot of shit before you get to that moment and I guess that is just the way it’s meant to be for what ever reason there is. By that stage you don’t give a damn because you have them. I think it’s more appreciated then though and not taken for granted which is usually the way when you’ve had to fight for something.

But if you’ve put it all into winning a person and it hasn’t worked, there has to be a point when you pick up the pieces and move on. You have tried it all. You’ve been patient and honest, understanding and fair and it hasn’t made a scrap of difference. It’s also usually after you have become conscious that you can hear something and it has been playing for a while. You realise it’s your heartstrings playing something as cheery as Pachabel Canon in D. Then and only then can you truly move on or you can kill them.




Unrequited love is when you love someone but they don't love you back. It's a common occurance in relationships and friendships. Nonetheless, that knowledge doesn't help the healing process. Below are a few quotes written by people "in the know" about love.



“A mighty pain to love it is,


And 'tis a pain that pain to miss;


But of all pains, the greatest pain


It is to love, but love in vain.”


Abraham Cowley

“Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.”


Washington Irving



“Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.”


Charlie Brown




“An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for love is measured by fullness, not by reception.”


Harold Lokes






“The saddest thing in the world, is loving someone who used to love you.”


Anonymous






“You never lose by loving. You always lost by holding back.”


Anon


“My love is of a birth as rare


As ‘tis for object strange and high:


It was begotten by Despair


Upon Impossibility.”


Andrew Marvell




“Let no one who loves be called unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rainbow.”


James Matthew Barrie


“Self-love seems so often unrequited.”


Anthony Powell


“Love, unrequited, robs me of my rest:


Love, hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers:


Love, nightmare-like, lies heavy on my chest,


And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers!”


William S. Gilbert