On Loving Someone That Doesn’t Love You Back

“Let’s just be friends.”

I don’t know what hurts more: getting punched in the face or hearing those words from someone you love.

Maybe to soften the blow, she tells you that you’re great and you’ll find someone else. “I don’t want to find someone else,” you say in your head.

I think about the memories, the laughs, all the time we spent together. Did that mean nothing to her?

I tell her that we should just be acquaintances. I want to be friends, I really do. But for my own sake, that’s not a good idea.

There are places I go to that remind me of her. The one restaurant we went to when we first hung out in New York. The bar we hung out after work. The park near my house where we walked together one evening. It’s a bittersweet feeling visiting these places. I treasure those memories but it hurts to think we won’t go to any of those places together again. I pass by the park bench facing the East River where I first confessed my feelings for her. I sit down on the same bench. I imagine her sitting beside me again. Perhaps in another universe, she felt the same way about me that I felt for her. Perhaps in another universe, we visit the same spots again, not as friends, but as lovers.

I told a friend what I was going through the other day, and he said to me that she’s probably hurting too. In your emotional state, you say whatever pain she feels, I’m feeling it tenfold. Does it even matter to her? She saw me as just a friend anyway.

Did I wish I never met her?

Did I wish I never confessed my feelings towards her?

No, she may not feel the same way about me, but I am grateful for getting to know her and sharing myself with her too. Although it hurts to accept that she won’t be in my future in the way I imagined.

But I’ll eventually move on. Maybe she already has. A part of me will always care about her, but now only from afar.