How Do I Get Over The Pain of Unrequited Love?

Estimated reading time: 17 minutes

Esteemed Dr. NerdLove

I’m a 27-year-old cisgender man and I’m in love with one of my closest female friends, but she doesn’t love me back. My friend and I have known each other for around a year and a half and, when we met, I never thought that I would end up falling in love with her. That is the kind of thing that I have always experienced when it comes to romance, being both demisexual and demiromantic.

About 6 months ago I realized that I have feelings for my friend and for a while, I thought that those feelings were reciprocated because we started becoming closer to each other. There have been lot of moments in which she has been very affectionate to me.

I eventually realized that her affection was only platonic and I misunderstood our closeness with her loving me back in a romantic way. She actually realized that I’m in love with her, we talked about it and she made it clear that her affection was always platonic. This realization has brought me a lot of pain because I’ve never had a girlfriend and I crave romantic affection.

I always end up falling in love with one of my closest female friends and they always reject me. With this particular friend I was feeling very excited and very hopeful when it seemed like she loved me back.

Recently I found out that she has a boyfriend, their relationship started just a couple of weeks ago. The pain that I feel is unbearable and I don’t know how deal with it, it hurts so much to think that she didn’t choose me as a partner and instead she chose a man that she has just known for a couple of weeks. I don’t know what to do to make the pain go away.

Thanks for reading, kind regards.

Broken Heart

That’s rough, man. Unrequited love always sucks when you’re going through it. I’m glad that your friend went out of her way to clear things up; it sounds to me like she was trying to let you down gently and to try to make it possible to stay friends. I understand that this isn’t a comfort right now, but that’s a sign that she does care for you; just not in the way you were hoping. I understand how disappointed you feel, but in time – if you’re willing and able to let this pass – that will make a world of difference to you.

But as much as this sucks and as much as I understand how it feels – believe me, I’ve been there, done that and set up the booth to sell the t-shirts to everyone who came after me – this was more or less inevitable from what I can see. One of the most important things you can do for yourself to recover from this heartbreak is to recognize how you’ve been setting yourself up for this to happen, and how you’re inadvertently making things worse for yourself.

The first thing you have to understand is that this isn’t about you. It’s not that she was deciding between you and this other guy; in fact, she didn’t choose the other guy over you. This is going to sound cold, but… the truth of the matter is that you weren’t a part of the equation in the first place.

This was never a case where you were so close and then this other guy swoops in at the last minute to edge you out. The amount of time you’d spent with her doesn’t “count” towards whether she’s going to choose you; it’s not a meter that ticks up until you unlock the “would you be my girlfriend” dialogue option. You built this up in your head until it reached the point where even she noticed it and said something about it. She cares for you as a friend, but she simply wasn’t interested in you as a potential romantic partner.

I’m sure you’re wondering what the other guy did that you didn’t. Put that out of your head; this wasn’t a case of “if I had just done X differently”, it was a case where you simply weren’t in consideration at all. There is no magical formula that the other person followed and you didn’t, because that’s not how love works. You could’ve done everything he did, exactly as he did and still had the same outcome you have now, because love doesn’t follow a flow-chart. You simply don’t have the x-factor that she needed to be attracted to you in that way, that’s all. That doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you or that you’re deficient. It just means that you and she didn’t mesh in the way you would need to in order for her to be attracted to you that way, that’s all. That’s nobody’s fault, it’s just what it is.

And honestly, if you think about it for a moment, you experience this all the time. I’m sure you’ve met plenty of women who are lovely and attractive but who don’t do it for you – not because they’re awful or defective or inferior but simply because you aren’t feeling it. That’s all it is. This is part of why dating is a numbers game; as the man says, it’s possible to make no mistakes and still lose. That’s not weakness, that’s life.

Comparing yourself to this guy does you no good. There’re no lessons to be learned here, and playing this game only makes the pain worse. You’re blaming yourself for being you, and all that does is make you more upset at yourself… and if you’re not careful, it can curdle into bitterness over your friend as well.

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t acknowledge the pain or pretend you’re not sad about it. You absolutely should. Feel the fuck out of the sadness that this didn’t turn out the way you hoped. Have yourself a nice cathartic cry about it. But do so understanding that this is just bad luck, not a failure on your part. Give yourself a couple days to cry about it, then dry your tears and start taking some of the steps I always recommend to folks who’re dealing with a break up: do a deep clean of your apartment, get some exercise and fresh air, spend quality time with your friends and do things that you find fun.

Now, let’s talk about how this was kind of inevitable. One of the things I noticed in your letter is that this isn’t the first time you’ve fallen for a close female friend, and this is a very common story for a lot of guys just like you. Let me ask you, BH: how many close male friends do you have? I don’t mean just guys you hang out with regularly, but a friend you can share your secrets with, someone who you can rely on for not just company but support and care? Or do you only have these sorts of emotionally intimate, intense friendships with women?

By that same token: how many female friends do you have? Do you tend to have only one really close female friend at a time, before you fall for them, or do you have a number of friends who are women – even if you’re not as close with them as you are with the one who just turned you down?

If I had to guess – and I do, since I don’t know you – I’m guessing the answers are: few to no male friends who are that close to you, and more female friends than male ones. And if that’s the case, then, well… that’s your problem.

See the reason why a lot of young men fall hard for their female friends is because of the difference between their friendships women and their friendships with men. One of the worst things that the toxic and hegemonic ideas about masculinity has done is convince generations of men that emotional intimacy is the same as romantic intimacy. Boys have incredible, intense friendships with other boys when they’re young, but as they approach puberty, that openness and affection tends to get ground out of them – by parents, by peers and by society in general. That sort of affection and closeness gets treated as though it were romantic or sexual in nature, and thus becomes suspect at best. Even in this day and age, the fear of being seen as gay or weak is wielded against boys until their emotional growth gets pruned like a fucked-up bonsai tree.

Meanwhile, the casual, affectionate physical contact, the emotional closeness and everything you experienced with the friends you fell? Those are typical of how women’s friendships work. Women are allowed a wider range of emotional expression and connection, and are permitted to have friendships that are about presence and sharing, rather than based around doing stuff. Think of how many times you’ve seen men make jokes about how “boring” or “sappy” women’s friendships are; that’s one of the ways that men are taught that emotional intimacy and connection are “gay”.

This, incidentally, fuels my pet theory is that war movies and buddy cop movies are so popular with men: these feature times when men are “allowed” to have the sort of intense emotional connection with another man. The “Battle Buddies” dynamic makes it acceptable. Yeah, you can have a friendship like Captain America and Bucky, but only because you’ve bonded through death and danger first.

But the problem is: just because boys and men have that outlet closed off to them, that doesn’t mean that they stop needing that sort of closeness and intimacy. It just means that they’re no longer ‘allowed’ to seek it from other men. Men, we are taught, both implicitly and explicitly, are only allowed to have that sort of closeness and intimacy with people we might conceivably fuck. Which means that if you’re straight, means you only are ‘allowed’ to look to women to have this need met.

Just as importantly though, is that when you finally get this closeness and intimacy you’ve been craving, it feels different. It’s more intense, it’s more exciting, it feels incredible; it must be love, right? Well… no. It’s incredible and intense, but it’s incredible and intense in the way that ice cold water is incredible and the most delicious thing in the world when you’re parched or how a mediocre sandwich can be transcendent when you’re starving. It’s not that you’re falling in love with your female friends, so much as you’re finally getting an emotional need met – one you’ve been disconnected from for so long that you don’t even realize you’re missing.

So what’s the answer here? Well, it ultimately comes down to “have more, better friends”. It’s easier to understand the difference between falling in romantic love with someone vs. an emotionally intimate friendship when you’re not metaphorically starving for said friendships in the first place. If you’re always starving, every sandwich and bag of chips is going to be a banquet. If you’re always starved for connection, it’s going to feel like love. Getting these needs met makes it much easier to meet women as potential partners instead of regularly falling for your friends.

Unfortunately, this is easy to say, but a little harder to put into practice. It takes time to build friendships, and getting closer to men takes more time because you have to both be willing and able to overcome the societal programming that makes those friendships feel sus. Even someone who’s craving the same connection as you is going to have to deal with the internal resistance and the fear that they’re being cringe (or queer) if they make a move towards it.

But that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth it. Believe me: more men than you realize are dying for better friendships. This is a case where being the kind of friend you need is important. Not only does it help you push past that programming, but it creates a permission structure for your friends to do so as well. It’s always hard to be the first person over the bridge, but they make it easier for each person that comes next.

It would also be a good idea to broaden your number of friendships with women – not only so you recognize the difference between platonic affection and romantic affection, but also so that you’re not putting all your emotional eggs in one basket. This is already a problem in romantic relationships between men and women; doing it with platonic friendships adds an additional layer of frustration for everyone. You get frustrated because you fall “in love” again only to be rejected, while your friend feels exhausted by the intensity and feels as though she got put in the “fuck zone”, even if that was never your intent.

Honestly, having a broad range of friends across the gender and sexuality spectrum is good, simply because it means that no one person is having to be the sole point of emotional contact for one another.    

The last thing I would suggest for you – for future reference, especially after you’ve started building closer friendships – is to not sit on your feelings for so long. If you’re interested in someone romantically, waiting or hoping for signs just ups the amount of premature and unnecessary emotional investment. You don’t want to just confess your feelings; its better to ask them on an unambiguous date. The romantic or sexual interest is inherent in the ask. It doesn’t guarantee that you won’t ever get rejected again; it will just mean that the rejection won’t hurt nearly as badly as it does when you’ve been pining away for months or years.

I know this stings, HB, and I know my advice feels like it makes that sting worse. Trust me as someone who’s been there: this too, shall pass. It may pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass, and it’ll past faster if you take those steps I recommend.

There will be love in the future for you. I promise. You’ll be ok.

Good luck.

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Dear Dr. NerdLove:

I’m a 45-year-old man, and I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I’ve been scammed by someone I met on a popular dating app that I won’t name because this is embarrassing enough as it is. It’s hard enough to admit that I was this stupid and it’s even harder to admit it publicly even in a place where nobody knows me, but here we are.

I met this woman on the app about six months ago. She was amazing. She was beautiful, kind, and we hit it off right away. We messaged every day, then moved to phone calls and video chats. Looking back, the video chats felt a bit off, but I brushed this off as an issue with her spotty Internet service. I didn’t think much of it at the time because I’m a digital nomad and even my portable hotspot can struggle and stutter when I have to have meetings in Zoom. We built what felt like a real connection, and she seemed so genuine. She said her employer had sent her to Turkey on a project, and that she’d be back in the US around the time that I’d be back too. We had started making plans to get together for a long romantic weekend that I had hoped would be the first of many.

Things started getting strange when she told me her bank card had been frozen. This wasn’t unusual to me, banks flag overseas transactions all the time. She was “stuck” and needed help to pay a contractor she was working with, so I sent her $500. Then it was $1,200, then another $3,000 for what she called “emergency fees.” I was hesitant at first but she promised she’d pay me back as soon as she got home, and I believed her. Before I wised up, I ended up sending her about $8,000.

Yes, I know. You can’t say anything to me that I haven’t said about myself. It should have been screamingly obvious to me. I still can’t believe I was this gullible.

The last straw was when she asked for another $5,000 for what she claimed was a “permit” to leave the country. This was my breaking point, because the other issues seemed so much more believable; she showed me screenshots of bills and warning notices from the bank and the emergencies always made sense between her job and being in remote parts of Turkey. But she got angry when I said I wasn’t sure, and then when I tried to ask her about it, she went cold. A few days later, she blocked me on everything.

I finally did some digging, and it turns out her pictures were a mix of a Russian model’s Instagram account and deep fakes. Everything she told me was a lie. Now, I feel completely humiliated. I’ve been divorced for a while, and I guess I was just so hopeful that I wanted to believe that this was real.

I haven’t told anyone about this. Not my friends, not my family. I’ve always prided myself in being too smart to fall for scams like this, even as friends of mine had been catfished. I don’t know how to move past this or even if I can trust anyone again. I’ve learned my lesson about doing my research, but how do I stop feeling like such a fucking idiot?

Thanks for reading,

Love Comes At A Cost

You’re not stupid, LCAC, you were tricked. I want you – and everyone else who reads this – to listen to me very carefully: nobody is immune from being conned or scammed. If you haven’t been conned, it’s not because you’re smarter than everyone else, it’s because you haven’t been hit with the con that would work on you. It’s more about timing and targeting than it is about anyone’s individual smarts and street-savvy.  

You were tricked by someone (or a group of someones) who pulls schemes like this all the time. They have practice and experience at it. You don’t. I know when we think of love cons and scams, we tend to think of obvious catfish incidents or the clumsy and low-effort “wrong number” pig-butchering texts that seem so glaringly transparent. How could anyone fall for those?

Well, those are obvious by design. They’re the scam equivalent of fishing with dynamite; they’re just looking for the marks that require the lowest effort. Plenty of people, on the other hand, have been tricked by fake emails purporting to be from their bank, from their ISP, their email service or their cellphone provider, or when their friends social media has been hacked.

It’s not that an honest man can’t be conned any more than a smart man can’t be fooled; it’s about the scammer or the con artist finding the one opening they can exploit. The scammers aren’t worried about your smarts, so much as trying to find the one moment when you’re not paying as close attention as you might be otherwise.

Or when they find you in a moment where you’re particularly hopeful and open. Like you were.

A good con artist targets the areas where people are most vulnerable for a reason. If they’re not playing on someone’s greed, they’ll play on their sense of hope or an honest desire for love and then exploit their generosity and desire to be a good and helpful person. That’s what happened here – you were trying to be generous to someone in need, someone you thought you knew. That’s not a flaw, that’s just a very shitty person was good at what they were doing and got lucky when they found your weak spot.

I realize that this is going to feel like pouring salt in the wound, but I think this is a time when it would be a good idea to watch the documentary The Tinder Swindler on Netflix. The women that Simon Leviev conned weren’t idiots; he was telling them a story that they wanted to hear, and he told it well. He had just enough to make his story plausible – private jets, European vacations, luxury hotels and 5 star restaurants and bottle service in exclusive clubs… it all seemed incredibly real, but it was built on fraud, forgery and financed by the proceeds of his previous victims. Your scammer wasn’t going to the same lengths, but the method was very similar. They gave you enough “evidence” to ease any suspicions you had, and in an era of Photoshop, LLM-enabled chats, deepfake videos and audio, it’s easier than ever to manufacture “proof”.

Once they got you to help out once, it was that much easier to get you to “help”, again and again until you caught on. That’s a psychological quirk in everyone, not just you; it’s why the first ask is almost always significant but reasonable. If they can get you over that initial hurdle, you’re that much more likely to keep at it. You did better than many who get scammed; a lot of people get soaked for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. I realize keeping it to high four digits is cold comfort indeed, but it could be much worse.

It’s understandable that you feel embarrassed, but there’s no shame in being conned by a professional. This is what they do, and they’ve had way more practice at running cons than you have at spotting them. And they rely on your embarrassment to keep you silent, so more people don’t hear about the scam and they can keep pulling the same tricks.

Personally, I think it’s worth telling your family and friends what happened, if only so that they can calibrate their Spidey-sense accordingly. But I understand why you wouldn’t want to, and that’s ok. The big thing is to recognize that while this happened, it’s not a comment on your smarts, just your capacity for hope and generosity. Going forward, you’ll be a little wiser, a little more guarded, if a little slower to trust. Make sure you maintain some strong boundaries, especially when the other person hasn’t actually earned your willingness to adjust those boundaries. And going forward, I recommend my rule of thumb: until you meet in person, you’re not dating.

Good luck.