Love lies bleeding

Which is worse, I wonder, having never fallen in love or having fallen in love but been rebuffed? Not having had either experience, I can only conjecture, but I imagine the second would be much more painful.

I find it hard to believe someone could never have fallen in love, but such people do exist. Do they just not have the inclination, or have they never met the particular person who gets their mojo working?

Whatever the reason, if you've never known love, I guess you don't know what you're missing so it's no big deal. On the other hand, if you've fallen for someone but they feel nothing at all for you, that must be very distressing.

But then again, do people who've never fallen in love not know what they're missing? Everywhere they look there are besotted lovers who can't get enough of each other and seem totally blissed out. Don't they think they're being deprived of some vital pleasure in life? Or do they simply think these starstruck lovers are suffering from some psychic delusion? Just seeing a very flawed and ordinary person through rose-tinted glasses?

And is unreciprocated love necessarily distressing? Okay, so the other person doesn't feel the same way, but isn't it fun fancying someone and imagining a red-hot night of passion, even if it never happens? How can what is merely a personal fantasy be distressing if there's not the slightest chance of it turning into reality? Even if there's an element of masochism, an unreal substitute for something more attainable, that's hardly an emotional knifing.

I would have thought love that has actually been reciprocated, even for a short time, would cause a lot more pain than love that's never reciprocated at all. For a while there is that heady prospect that you both feel the same way, that there is that magical symbiosis of affection and understanding that connects your two identities and creates something bigger and better than your individual existence. And then your growing hopes are cruelly dashed as the other person makes it clear they don't feel that subtle communion after all.

All I know is that one way or another love can cause deep anguish as well as profound joy. It's an emotion not to be trifled with, not to be taken lightly.

Unrequited love

Unrequited love is a painful business. You pine away secretly (or not so secretly) while the desired person shows no interest in you whatever.

I didn't meet Jenny till I was 34, so I had had plenty of time to yearn in vain. Fortunately the yearning usually fizzled out harmlessly, but it did become obsessive once or twice - notably with G.

It was worse when I was working with someone, and every day they were churning up waves of desire. Just a friendly greeting or a passing remark would get me so steamed up it was all I could do to concentrate on my work.

I would keep on hoping that sooner or later this dazzling woman would be equally smitten with me, but I was constantly disappointed. I would ask myself what she didn't like about me. Were my clothes unfashionable? Was I too gloomy? Was I boring? Was I a noisy eater? I never found out of course. It could have been anything.

What I was always afraid of was that some mischief-maker would divulge my private passion to the person concerned, who would be convulsed with hilarity at the idea she could possibly fancy ME. "Nick? You must be joking? He's so eccentric."

I would keep telling myself that such fruitless longing was absurd and I should be looking for other, more responsive women. But I would still be drawn inexorably to the woman who ignored me, the one with that indefinable attraction.

It was a great relief when eventually my love was reciprocated and I could put those frustrating cravings behind me. And I could stop making a fool of myself.