What I Thought Was Part of My Identity Turned Out to Be Nothing More Than a Love Addiction
Photo by Larisa Birta on Unsplash
I used to consider myself a hopeless romantic, or sometimes a hopeful romantic. I loved watching romantic movies, and I loved listening to love songs. And I found that all these things fed into my desire to have romantic love in my life, which is one reason I always seemed to be crushing on someone.
But I’ve recently taken the time to start analyzing my history with crushes. Actually, it was a conversation with AI that got me really thinking about this. What I came to realize is that many of the people I’ve crushed on in the past were either out-of-reach, like celebrities, or emotionally unavailable.
When you’ve experienced a lot of unrequited love like I have, you may feel inclined to look for crush patterns after a while. You may want to know the reason why you haven’t been able to experience reciprocal love.
And it was while I was doing this analysis that I finally realized something. I don’t think I’ve ever really wanted a romantic relationship. I’ve just been addicted to all the wonderful feelings that arise in me when I hear those love songs, watch those movies, or fantasize about a crush.
This was actually a hard realization to come to. Because for a long time, I saw myself as a romantic who was just waiting to experience a real relationship in real life. And so, realizing this has left me with a bit of an identity crisis as I try to figure out, who am I without that aspect of myself?
Why the Crush Choices?
Even though I never really wanted a romantic relationship, I loved the feeling of being in love or having a crush on someone. As someone of the INFJ personality type, I feel emotions deeply. And the strength of the feelings I get when experiencing love is hard to describe.
It really was an addiction for me. But I wasn’t aware of this before. I just always seemed to be in love with someone or on the search for someone to love.
Still, on a subconscious level, I believe I purposely chose crushes I couldn’t date. Often those crushes were celebrities, and I entertained fantasies of us being together. But except in one case, I didn’t really do much that would put me in a position to date them or meet them outside a fan-celebrity context.
(Even in the case of the one exception, I still never met him.)
For crushes I did know in real life, I notice that most of them were emotionally unavailable in one way or another. For me, emotional unavailability really just means that they weren’t free or able to give me their whole heart.
It wasn’t a conscious choice to choose these people to crush on. But I think my subconscious knew I didn’t really want all the responsibility that comes with having a reciprocal relationship with someone. At the same time, it knew how much I relish the feeling of being in love. So, it had me choose “safe” people to love—in other words, people I couldn’t date. (It also somehow managed to push away people who could have potentially become partners long before any romance had time to bloom.)
One thing AI has helped me understand more clearly is that unrequited love is a safe way of loving. It’s one reason people may choose to crush on fictional characters, for instance. They get to experience the wonderful emotions that come with being in love without having to actually deal with the vulnerability and responsibility that come with having a relationship.
I wanted the feeling but not the relationship. And so, my subconscious chose people I could safely love.
But as I said, I’ve only come to this realization recently. When I was having all those crushes, I thought I really wanted a relationship with those people. And that led to painful emotions when I felt they weren’t giving me the reciprocal love I craved.
If only I could have realized sooner how content I am to be single. I might have been able to convince myself of that sometimes. But I believe that in the back of my mind, I was usually thinking, “Well, I’m content for now, until my partner comes along.”
Signs of the Pattern
I wrote a YA romance called “What Happens After You Confess Your Feelings to Someone?” The story is loosely based on some of my past experiences with unrequited love.
I also wrote some poems based on the story from the perspective of the main characters, including the female protagonist. And what I found odd was that some of the things she expresses in those poems echo sentiments I was feeling with respect to a more recent crush.
The crushes that inspired the story took place years ago, although it took me a while to get over one in particular. But here I was still experiencing the same emotions that I did back then.
This was when I really started to realize that I was still repeating the same unrequited love pattern. It was easier to ignore when working on the story itself because I could focus on how different the literal events there were from my real life. But because the poems look at those events from a more general perspective, it was hard for me to overlook the similarities then. And it’s things like this that led me to start analyzing my own crush patterns.
(If you’re interested in reading the story, you can click here to sample the first three chapters.)
I have to admit, it’s a bit of a relief to me to realize that I don’t actually want a romantic partner. This means I’m free to enjoy any romantic feelings I have without feeling like I have to act on them or enter a romantic relationship with someone. It also means I’m still free to fantasize when I want to without feeling like I need to experience a real relationship in real life. I’m quite content with the relationship I have with just myself.
Do I Still Consider Myself a Hopeless Romantic?
To answer the question simply, not really. One thing I’ve learned about myself on my own self journey is that I can be very easily influenced by the art I consume. And consuming romantic songs and movies over the years led me to conclude that this is what life is all about. I talk more about how this can influence INFJs and other hopeless romantics in this post. (INFJs tend to be considered hopeless romantics.)
And it wasn’t just any love I was searching for, but the deep, passionate kind. This is common for INFJs. We tend to not want a partner just for the sake of having one. We want to find our soulmate.
But that innate desire combined with the media and society’s emphasis on partnership and relationships made me feel like nothing else was worth pursuing. And, of course, it didn’t help that I was a sponge for that kind of messaging. And all of that, combined with deeply embedded religious beliefs, led me to take a very passive approach to life.
I essentially felt like I couldn’t move forward until I found a partner.
Now I consider myself spiritual not religious, which has helped me take a more active approach to life. And I don’t consider myself a hopeless romantic anymore, which has allowed me to focus on other things besides romance.
I still occasionally watch romantic movies and listen to love songs. But I’m more cautious about not letting myself get caught up in them. And if there is any romance in my life right now, it’s romance I show to myself.
~ Ashley C.
P.S. If you find that you’ve been dealing with a lot of unrequited love, you might also want to start doing some crush analysis. If you would like my help with this, my Romantic Narrative Assessment might be just what you need. It will provide you with a written analysis of the romantic story you’re telling yourself so you can start integrating new romantic patterns.
With this analysis, you won’t necessarily come to the same conclusion that I did, that you never really wanted a romantic relationship. But you may learn that, like me, you were often drawn to people who were emotionally unavailable. This awareness can help you be more mindful about watching for signs of emotional unavailability in your crushes going forward.
If you’re interested, simply click the image below to learn more.
A written analysis of the romantic story you’ve been telling yourself.
If unrequited feelings are more familiar to you than requited ones, this analysis will deconstruct your recurring patterns of unrequited love so you can rewrite the script of your romantic life without a single coaching session.
The Basic Version of the assessment includes a comprehensive analysis of your romantic loops. Once you’re aware of your romantic patterns, it’ll be easier to make different (and healthier) decisions going forward. And changing your patterns will put you in a better position to achieve the romantic outcome you truly desire.