Honestly, whenever thinking about unrequited love, I always go back to the movie, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It was heart-wrenching to watch Charlie get his heart broken by Sam, wasn’t it? It feels much worse when you are the Charlie in real life and haven’t we all been there? (If you haven’t, then I am happy for you and hope you don’t need this article anytime in the future either :) )
Whether it’s someone you have been in love with since you were a kid or someone you have known and liked for just a few weeks, it’s heartbreaking to find out that they don’t have the same feelings for you. Believe me, I have had my fair share of yin days of being in love and yang days of crying my eyes out. So here’s some advice from someone who’s been there, done that, and tried everything to get over unrequited love.
Don’t Rush it
First and foremost over everything I have to say about getting over a heartbreak. After hearing the not-so-magical words, i.e. “I don’t feel the same way about you,” our first instinct is to immediately expect ourselves to start moving on and feel lesser for the person. But rushing the process is only going to make it harder. Instead, trust yourself and feel your feelings, whether it’s sadness, upset, anger, betrayal or anything else. As the writers of Fleabag say, “It’ll pass” and so it will.
Don’t undermine what you are going through
There are many people (myself included) who undermine how much heartbreak affects their lives. Like any other aspect of our life, our love life and the hurt we feel there are also ‘allowed’ to affect us and are important enough to deal with. Some days, when we might be feeling a little too down to do anything, it’s okay for heartbreak to be a reason to take a break and just be. Taking a little inspiration from Langston in ‘Dash and Lily’ who takes a break from college because he’s too heartbroken to study.
Prioritize yourself
There are times in our lives when we need to think a little more about ourselves and dealing with a broken heart is one of those times as well. If you need to be distanced from the person for a while to help you feel your feelings, then do that. If you need to talk to your best friends about it, then do that. This is probably a situation that is not affecting anyone else as much as you and so it makes perfect sense for you to get through it however you want.
Spend time with your friends
If you were anything like me in love, then you would also have spent a lot of your time invested in your love by being with the person, trying to woo them or even when with your friends, talking about them. The best way, at times, is to clear your head and have a good laugh with your closest friends. Go out, spend time doing things you love, distract yourself and just be. Go the extra mile to spend all that time with your besties now!
Try the classics
What better time to be a little cheesy and try some of the good ol’ heartbreak cures?
Watch a sad movie. Watch a happy movie. Eat ice cream straight out of the tub. Listen to songs about heartbreak. Cry. Reminisce. Nothing is too cheesy, nothing is too much. Be a little dramatic. It’s not every day that you’ll even feel that shattering feeling (or that bittersweet one that will follow for sure).
With this, I hope reading this piece has provided a little comfort to someone out there who’s nursing a broken heart and even if it didn’t, I hope you do get through it. Because trust me, once you do, you’re only left with happier, gold-tinted memories or maybe even a few laughs if you think the person wasn’t worth it. But I wouldn’t say the process wasn’t worth it because I believe it makes you a new person and it always comes back to you in ways and experiences much better than you expect.
P.S. Here’s my heartbreak playlist if you ever feel like staying in sadness for a bit :’)