Have you ever found yourself pondering, “Why do I love you?” only to be met with silence, or worse, indifference? Unrequited love, the bittersweet ache of affection directed towards someone who doesn’t reciprocate, is a deeply human experience. It can feel like an emotional tempest, leaving you yearning for a connection that remains just out of reach. In these moments of heartbreak, it’s natural to wish you could simply switch off your feelings, to erase the “Why I Love You” from your heart’s vocabulary. You might seek solace in distractions, hoping to outrun the pain, or even attempt to rationalize your way out of love. Yet, those who have navigated the labyrinth of unrequited love know that such remedies, while offering temporary respite, fail to address the root of the matter: love, in its essence, often defies logic and reason.
This isn’t to say that your predicament is hopeless. While the sting of unreturned affection is undeniable, there’s a way to transform this bitterness into something profoundly meaningful, even beautiful. By shifting your perspective, you can begin to understand not just the “why I love you” in terms of your feelings for another, but also the “why I love you” in terms of your own capacity for deep emotion and human experience.
Love, in its most compelling form, isn’t always a transaction based on rational choices. We don’t fall in love solely because someone meets a checklist of desirable traits. Think of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, drawn to Count Vronsky not for logical reasons, but by an irresistible pull of charm and attention. This kind of love, which I call arational love, operates outside the realm of pure reason. It’s this very arationality that creates the “problem of particularity.” If love were purely rational, based on qualities like charm or intelligence, why would we fixate on one person when many others possess similar attributes? Why Vronsky, and not another charming count?
Some argue that the answer lies in shared history – the unique tapestry woven by two individuals in a relationship. Perhaps it was Anna’s first encounter with Vronsky at that Moscow train station that cemented their bond. However, this explanation falters when we consider unrequited love. Doesn’t love sometimes ignite at first sight, or blossom for someone we barely know? If love can exist without a reciprocal relationship, then the relationship itself can’t be the sole reason for its existence. This strengthens the idea that love, especially the poignant “why I love you” kind, often operates on a deeper, more instinctual level.
Therefore, to tell someone heartbroken by unrequited love to simply “move on” based on pragmatic reasons is to miss the point entirely. Love isn’t swayed by logical arguments, even when those arguments are in our best interest. It’s not something we can simply turn off with willpower or rationalization.
Some might counter, “But what if this love causes harm? If the ‘why I love you’ becomes a source of constant pain, isn’t that reason enough to stop?” Yet, even this valid concern doesn’t diminish love’s arational nature. Love, in its profoundest form, can be unwavering, even in the face of suffering. Shakespeare captured this sentiment when he wrote about loving “even to the edge of doom.” Consider Sydney Carton in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. His love for Lucie Manette, though unreturned, drove him to ultimate self-sacrifice. He died in her beloved’s place, demonstrating a love that transcended personal well-being. This illustrates that romantic love isn’t just arational; it can also be profoundly unconditional. The “why I love you” transcends circumstance and reciprocation.
If you are grappling with unrequited love, understanding its arational and unconditional nature might initially bring renewed distress. But take heart. There’s a powerful way to reframe your experience. While unrequited love can be deeply painful, it’s also a testament to your extraordinary capacity for feeling. It’s a “sublime and exquisite torture,” as paradoxical as that may sound. And this exquisite torture, this profound “why I love you” that resonates within you, is worth bearing. Instead of fighting against your love, you can choose to embrace it. By embracing your unrequited love, you can lessen its sting and discover a deeper understanding of yourself.
What does it mean to embrace love, especially when it’s unrequited? While love itself is arational, our attitude towards it is something we can consciously shape. If we resist our love, we create an internal conflict, a rift between our feelings and our conscious rejection of them. This internal struggle amplifies the bitterness of the experience. However, by adopting an attitude of affirmation, you can find peace within yourself. Embracing unrequited love means acknowledging and accepting your feelings. It’s about telling yourself, “I’m in love, and that’s OK,” even if the object of your affection doesn’t feel the same way. The “why I love you” becomes less about external validation and more about internal acceptance.
You might worry that embracing unrequited love for purely pragmatic reasons – “it would be better for me” – is somehow disingenuous. You might think that genuine affirmation requires genuine belief that your love is “OK.” Fortunately, there’s a compelling, non-prudential reason to embrace your unrequited love: its sheer sublimity.
The very fact that we, as rational beings, are capable of arational, unconditional love is something to marvel at. We, these small and fragile creatures, possess the capacity for a love that touches the infinite, the eternal. This echoes Kant’s concept of the mathematical sublime – the overwhelming experience of something so vast, so powerful, so beyond our comprehension that it dwarfs our rational faculties. To paraphrase Kant, our capacity to feel something so immense, even beyond reason’s grasp, “indicates a faculty … which surpasses every standard of sense.” The “why I love you,” in its intensity and persistence, points to something beyond the ordinary.
To love is to demonstrate a capacity that transcends both our senses and our reason. The depth of feeling we are capable of is a defining aspect of our humanity. Our relative helplessness in the face of love’s power is perhaps the very essence of what makes us human. As W.H. Auden wrote, “If equal affection cannot be, / Let the more loving one be me.” This willingness to love, even without reciprocation, speaks to a profound strength within us.
Love, therefore, is sublime precisely because it pushes against the boundaries of our understanding. We seek rational explanations for love, we want to make sense of the “why I love you,” to fit it neatly into our logical frameworks. Yet, love often defies these attempts. It is not a choice, yet it is also something we do, not merely something that happens to us. This inherent paradox, this incomprehensibility, reflects a deeper mystery about our agency and our very selves. Our experience of love, especially unrequited love, offers a glimpse into a realm beyond the limits of practical reason. Love exists at the outer edges of our agency’s thinkability. It’s sublime because it hints at the supersensible, the realm beyond our immediate perception.
In conclusion, love – including the often-painful experience of unrequited love – is exceptional. It can endure hardship, persist against all odds, and flourish in unexpected places and times. While it may hurt that your beloved doesn’t return your affection, find solace in this: in loving, in asking “why I love you” and feeling that love deeply, you are touching upon something profound and sublime. Don’t shy away from this precipice of human experience. Instead, look upon it with awe and recognize the nobility inherent in your capacity to love so deeply. Romantic or not, returned or unreturned, love is sublime and worthy of embrace because it reveals a unique and noble capacity within you, the lover. This “why I love you,” even in its unrequited form, speaks volumes about who you are and what you are capable of feeling.
