The thing about unrequited love is that it makes such a great story. Just this past month I became obsessed with “Eastwick” – Which features, among other things, an opening storyline of unrequited love in a local newsroom. Of course, Will St. David returns Joanna Frankel’s love. That’s half the fun in Fiction Land. Two people who are crazy about each other – or will be once somebody finally says something. Ross and Rachel from “Friends” come to mind, too.

It's so entertaining when two people we just *know* should be together keep getting their signals crossed.

It's different in real life, though. Usually just one person "knows." And I suspect that unrequited love eventually revealed and then actually returned is a massive rarity. More often, unrequited love is something to be gotten over. Somehow or another.

In movies, of course, there is the long-suffering lover.

Fiona in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" is a classic, while Mark from "Love Actually," I often think of as a shining example of respecting the great emotion of love, while releasing it as need be when one is ready.

Again, romantic in movies; major suck in real life.

I was thinking the other day about the physical aspect of unrequited love. I suspect that it's usually a major factor in making the affliction so hard to shake. After all, in our modern lives the mind/body connection, when experienced, seems downright mystical.

When we meet someone and our body reacts, how can it not seem meant to be? Oddly, the physical reaction - and I don't mean pure sexual attraction alone, I mean a physical reaction to another's voice, smell, manner, etc. - can seem to elevate our emotional and mental response and give it an unshakable weight. Surely, if the body reacts so unbidden, true love is at hand.

Except often it's just not.

I find most amazing, the experience of the physical reaction when totally separate from the mental and emotional. Here, perhaps, is where salvation from unrequited love can be found. Because if you can experience the physical reaction to someone's voice or presence in the complete absence of mind and heart desire for romantic love, then you can know that it is simply a trick.

Sometimes I wonder if on some physical level my body is simply reacting to a good gene match or some such. And since I'm not looking for healthy off-spring, I say to my body, Goosebump away. Adrenaline, shortness of breath, a quickening heartbeat. Without actual love and attraction between two people, it's all nothing.

But it does make for very good stories.

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Linky goodness (jams edition):

Top 5 Unrequited Love Songs from thosegirlsarewild.com

Flashback Friday--I Can't Make You Love Me from Blah Blah Blah

Apricot Riesling Jam from Simply Recipes - Don't miss this from retroknit in the comments:

As an interesting and slightly macabre side note, the apricot pits impart a slight almond-y flavor to the jam because they contain traces of cyanogenetic glycosides, which essentially turn into cyanide upon ingestion. (Almonds contain trace amounts of the same stuff, and bitter almonds contain lots of it - hence the flavor; Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera starts out with a cyanide/almond reference - IIRC, the first line is "It was inevitable - the smell of bitter almonds always reminded him of unrequited love.")

Roasting the apricot pits should get rid of most of the cyanogenetic glycoside, and it would take a fair number of whole, unroasted apricot pits to hurt a child (and many more to hurt an adult) - so putting one in the bottom of your jam jars should be just fine. But yep, it's the teensiest bit of tasty, tasty cyanide that gives the jam that slight almond flavor.

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Contributing editor Liz Rizzo also blogs at Everyday Goddess.