Unrequited

Can "love" truly be real if it is unrequited? In the sense that the person you love, does not love you back? Do we feel love because someone loves us? Give love because we get love? Someone is always going to say it first. That first person has worked it out in their own mind. But the other person, do they just say it back because it's the right thing to do? Because it would hurt too much not saying it back.

Theoretically, the one you love, is the most important person in your life. For some it is the person who completes them, fixed them or makes them a better person. But to allow someone the entire access to your heart, your mind, your soul or whatever you want to call it, is wholly an act of trust. No one can relay their deepest desires and secrets without trusting that the other person will not judge or mock or betray them.

Someone told me that love is giving someone the power to destroy you and trusting them not to. So if you have both given eachother the power, is love just an agreement of mutually assured destruction? In love, you give part of yourself to the other person, and in doing so are you also protecting yourself? If the one you love hurts you, they are also going to hurt themselves. 

Can you give someone that power without recieving the same power back? If you get in so deep as to call it "love", is it real? Can you love someone who has never loved you and never will? Unrequited "love" is potentially the most painful and detrimental thing a person could experience psychologically. But how can we be sure? Is it worth the pain to take a chance? To maybe learn some things and better ourselves?

Our relationships and "love", "lust", "trust", "desire", "heart", whatever you chose to call it or prove by, will always teach us something. Human beings have the endless capacity to grow, and every individual we meet is a potential for growth.

Substitute

So what of the ideals we place on ourselves? The "checklist", so to speak, of people we surround ourselves with. The friends or family. Does anyone ever truly match our criteria?

Or do we just find the closest match and wait for something better fitting to come along?

I know the feeling that you're simply a substitute, and the feeling of being relieved of your duties as the right person came along. It's not a good feeling.

It got me thinking about the other people in my life. Are they truly there for me, caring and giving, or are they simply playing the part?

My family have to, because that is the role of family, it's not something you choose, you are born into it.

But the people i chose to have in my life, the ones who make me smile, or be a better person, or offer support. Are they real? If i stopped, would they stop? Is unrequited love really possible? Or is it a mutual thing. I love you for loving me, when it seems no one else can?

I don't believe in the generalism of love. I believe for every person in your life, you feel something different. No two feelings are the same. Stronger feelings may be what others call love. Others call Lust, Love. And the differences between love and being in love, are different to every person, if different at all.

Your first "love" is always going to be with you, it is not something you get over. Someone who is everlasting in your head and your heart.

Then there are the people who claim to be in love, because it's what they know they should be feeling. They play the part, and once they realise, it's already too late. Or for those who never realise, is this good or bad? Can you trick yourself into feeling something?

So how do we know we've found the right and real thing? How do we know we aren't just a substitution until something better comes along. There are no certainties in the game of "love", but does that mean we should never play the game?

"If i gave you my heart, would you just play the part?
Or tell me it's the start of something beautiful?"