Read Online Unrequited by Lisa A. Phillips - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lisa A. Phillips
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believe it was actually happening. In four days I slept maybe ten hours. It seemed like we had this great connection.”
Then he left and didn’t call.
She waited. Waiting for the phone call (or the text, or the email) is a mortifying cliché of unrequited love. So many of us have been there. The whole situation feels like the worst injustice, worthy of R & B singer Macy Gray’s helium-voiced protest: We had such a good time / Hey!Why didn’t you call me? Even so, the unwanted woman can go a long way to rationalize the silence. There must be a reasonable explanation. He’s lost his phone. He’s busy.He needs space as he comes to terms with the momentousness of his feelings. Ryan, after all, had disappeared once before, and the cycling accident—which Sonya never could have suspected—justified his prior silence. Maybe there was something else that would explain what was happening.
Why didn’t he call her? Silent avoidance might be a symptom of the rejecter’s moral paralysis. There’s another possibility: that he was in the process of deciding whether he wanted to move forward with a relationship. Sonya and Ryan were in a “reconnaissance dance”—the exploratory stage in the formation of a relationship. In this stage, potential couples or friends sample each other’s company in an effort to decide whether they want to be together. The decision is based in part onan unstated cost-benefit calculation: what the relationship will give versus what it will take away. Sonya no longer needed to dance, so to speak. She knew she wanted to bewith Ryan. She’d appraised him and determined that his insights, his intelligence, and his attractiveness would benefit her; they seemed worth the costs of holding out for him to respond in kind.
She also bestowed value on him. In loving him, she made him valuable beyond his objective appraised qualities. While appraisal asks, “What is the person worth to me?,”bestowing value isn’t evidence-based. It’s more closely linked to the need for attachment, which isn’t always rationally expressed. For most people,falling in love is something they can’t control.
Chances are that Ryan and his ilk—The Ones Who Do Not Call—are having a very different experience of the reconnaissance dance. They are conducting a more detached cost-benefit analysis. And yet there’s no good way for the rejecter to share this appraisal process with the prospective partner. It may be rude not to call after you’ve had an intimate four-day date—but what do you say when you do call? “Hello, thank you for necking with me for hours on end, I just wanted to let you know I’m still deciding how I feel about you and it isn’t looking good”?
I had a disarmingly honest interview about the cost-benefit analysis with Lorne, a forty-seven-year-old entrepreneur living in a New York City suburb. In his twenties, he fell for a woman who confided that in girlhood she had been sexually abused by a relative. At first he was furious that anyone could have violated her in this way. He wanted to care for her and protect her. As he got to know her better, he realized that she wasn’t the beautiful heroine he’d imagined. He saw her ongoing vulnerability and was frightened by what he perceived as her neediness. He told me he realized that he could not be her “knight in shining armor.” The cost-benefit analysis he conducted no longer tipped in her favor.
He began to show up late for dates, or not at all, until she called him out on his rudeness and ended the relationship. Later, shetried frantically to get him back, distraught that a man she’d let herself trust had been so callous with her. He didn’t relent. Her efforts confirmed for him that she was too much of a handful. He described his reaction as “she was nuts and I wasn’t interested.” Now he understands that he was too scared to be direct. He said that actually confessing how he really felt would have been “too emotional, too
Then he left and didn’t call.
She waited. Waiting for the phone call (or the text, or the email) is a mortifying cliché of unrequited love. So many of us have been there. The whole situation feels like the worst injustice, worthy of R & B singer Macy Gray’s helium-voiced protest: We had such a good time / Hey!Why didn’t you call me? Even so, the unwanted woman can go a long way to rationalize the silence. There must be a reasonable explanation. He’s lost his phone. He’s busy.He needs space as he comes to terms with the momentousness of his feelings. Ryan, after all, had disappeared once before, and the cycling accident—which Sonya never could have suspected—justified his prior silence. Maybe there was something else that would explain what was happening.
Why didn’t he call her? Silent avoidance might be a symptom of the rejecter’s moral paralysis. There’s another possibility: that he was in the process of deciding whether he wanted to move forward with a relationship. Sonya and Ryan were in a “reconnaissance dance”—the exploratory stage in the formation of a relationship. In this stage, potential couples or friends sample each other’s company in an effort to decide whether they want to be together. The decision is based in part onan unstated cost-benefit calculation: what the relationship will give versus what it will take away. Sonya no longer needed to dance, so to speak. She knew she wanted to bewith Ryan. She’d appraised him and determined that his insights, his intelligence, and his attractiveness would benefit her; they seemed worth the costs of holding out for him to respond in kind.
She also bestowed value on him. In loving him, she made him valuable beyond his objective appraised qualities. While appraisal asks, “What is the person worth to me?,”bestowing value isn’t evidence-based. It’s more closely linked to the need for attachment, which isn’t always rationally expressed. For most people,falling in love is something they can’t control.
Chances are that Ryan and his ilk—The Ones Who Do Not Call—are having a very different experience of the reconnaissance dance. They are conducting a more detached cost-benefit analysis. And yet there’s no good way for the rejecter to share this appraisal process with the prospective partner. It may be rude not to call after you’ve had an intimate four-day date—but what do you say when you do call? “Hello, thank you for necking with me for hours on end, I just wanted to let you know I’m still deciding how I feel about you and it isn’t looking good”?
I had a disarmingly honest interview about the cost-benefit analysis with Lorne, a forty-seven-year-old entrepreneur living in a New York City suburb. In his twenties, he fell for a woman who confided that in girlhood she had been sexually abused by a relative. At first he was furious that anyone could have violated her in this way. He wanted to care for her and protect her. As he got to know her better, he realized that she wasn’t the beautiful heroine he’d imagined. He saw her ongoing vulnerability and was frightened by what he perceived as her neediness. He told me he realized that he could not be her “knight in shining armor.” The cost-benefit analysis he conducted no longer tipped in her favor.
He began to show up late for dates, or not at all, until she called him out on his rudeness and ended the relationship. Later, shetried frantically to get him back, distraught that a man she’d let herself trust had been so callous with her. He didn’t relent. Her efforts confirmed for him that she was too much of a handful. He described his reaction as “she was nuts and I wasn’t interested.” Now he understands that he was too scared to be direct. He said that actually confessing how he really felt would have been “too emotional, too
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