Unrequited love

fell from a rock out of unrequited love for the ferryman Phaon. Painting by Ernst Stückelberg, 1897. Route to unrequited love According to Roy Baumeister, what makes a person desirable is a complex and highly personal mix of many qualities and traits. Falling for someone who is much more desirable than oneself—whether because of physical beauty or attributes like charm, intelligence, wit, or status—Baumeister calls "prone to find [its] love unrequited" and states that such relationships will not last. The object of unrequited love is often a friend or acquaintance, someone regularly encountered in the workplace, during the course of work, school, or other activities involving large groups of people. This creates an awkward situation in which the admirer has difficulty in expressing their true feelings, a fear that revelation of feelings might invite rejection, cause embarrassment, or might end all access to the beloved, as a romantic relationship may be inconsistent with the existing association. Rejectors "There are two bad sides to unrequited love, but only one is made familiar by our culture"—that of the lover, not the rejector. In fact, research suggests that the object of unrequited affection experiences a variety of negative emotions exceeding those of the suitor, including anxiety, frustration, and guilt. As Freud pointed out, "when a woman sues for love, to reject and refuse is a distressing part for a man to play". ==Advantages==

looks longingly at Beatrice Portinari (in yellow) as she passes by him with Lady Vanna (in red) in Dante and Beatrice, by Henry Holiday Unrequited love has long been depicted as noble, an unselfish and stoic willingness to accept suffering. Literary and artistic depictions of unrequited love may depend on assumptions of social distance that have less relevance in western, democratic societies with relatively high social mobility and less rigid codes of sexual fidelity. Nonetheless, the literary record suggests a degree of euphoria in the feelings associated with unrequited love, which has the advantage as well of carrying none of the responsibilities of mutual relationships: certainly, "rejection, apparent or real, may be the catalyst for inspired literary creation... 'the poetry of frustration'." Eric Berne considered that "the man who is loved by a woman is lucky indeed, but the one to be envied is he who loves, however little he gets in return. How much greater is Dante gazing at Beatrice than Beatrice walking by him in apparent disdain." ==Remedies==

Roman poet Ovid in his Remedia Amoris "provides advice on how to overcome inappropriate or unrequited love. The solutions offered include travel, teetotalism, bucolic pursuits, and ironically, avoidance of love poets". ==Cultural examples==

gift with heart-shaped helium balloons attached sits discarded in a dumpster. Western • In the wake of his real-life experiences with Maud Gonne, W. B. Yeats wrote of those who "had read/All I had rhymed of that monstrous thing/Returned and yet unrequited love". • According to Robert B. Pippin, Proust claimed that "the only successful (sustainable) love is unrequited love", something which according to Pippin, "has been invoked as a figure for the condition of modernity itself". • The comic strip Peanuts presents many examples. Some of it is based on creator Charles M. Schulz's love for Donna Mae Johnson, the inspiration for the strip's "little red-haired girl". Many of the characters are attracted to others who do not feel the same to them. Eastern • The medieval Japanese poet Saigyō may have turned from samurai to monk because of unrequited love, one of his waka asking: "What turned me to wanting/to break with the world-bound life?/Maybe the one whose love/turned to loathing and who now joins with me in a different joy". In other poems he wrote: "Alas, I'm foreordained to suffer, loving deep a heartless lass....Would I could know if there be such in far-off China!" • as a typing awareness indicator on the left.In China, passion tends to be associated not with happiness, but with sorrow and unrequited love. ==Modern science==