As time passes by, this hope turns into anxiety and finally a heartbreak as the hope turns into hopelessness. But what to do when love is one sided? How long would you wait for a person to reciprocate? Well!! That’s a million -dollar question. In the books and the movies people wait a lifetime and then finally their love is reciprocated. But reality is different. You can keep feeling single in a relationship forever and your love might never be reciprocated. Then you would be only left with a broken heart and lessons learnt from unrequited love. In that case the most sensible thing would be to know the one-sided relationship signs and deal with it accordingly. Ken Draxton, a real-estate broker from California was madly in love with his high-school classmate who never gave him a second look. After two divorces and after 29 years she finally looked at him. They cohabit now and are happy together. But not every one-sided love story has a happy ending. You should know what to do when love is one sided.
What Is One-Sided Relationship?
When you fall for someone you initially don’t know if they have the same feelings for you. But when you start dropping hints and they start reciprocating, it gradually becomes a two-way street from where you move to the next level – that could be dating, exclusivity or even long-term plans.
But in a one-sided relationship psychology you keep hoping for the person to give you the attention you want, latch on to the hints you throw or understand that you are madly in love with them. But most often the hopes are dashed because the other person might be understanding your feelings but they do not reciprocate because they have none for you.
If you are looking for one-sided relationship meaning then it simply means that all the feelings of love, euphoria and excitement are relegated to one person, there is nothing mutual here.
People are usually tormented by unrequited love when they fall for a classmate or close friend, a friend’s sibling, a colleague or even a family friend. They have a basic relationship with them, even a friendship, that they hope would transform into love one day. But usually they are pushed into the friendzone or entirely ignored.
Before you actually hit the rock bottom in this doomed relationship that is consuming you, it is a good idea to introspect and look for signs that suggest that this is clearly one-sided love and more than anything else you should be thinking of how to get over this unrequited love.
6 Signs Of A One-Sided Relationship
She is your friend. Fine! You have a crush on her. Fine! You have dropped hints. Fine! Now comes the gamechanger. Did she pick up the hints and act on it? You are not sure. She sometimes calls you and chats for hours and you start believing she has feelings for you and then she is off the radar for days. she dresses up and asks you to compliment her and you are then pretty sure that things are warming up but the next day she tell you not to ogle at her. That’s the thing about one-sided relationships, you are perpetually left guessing if your love interest has any interest in you or not. And that guessing game can go on forever. Check out if these one-sided relationship signs are staring you in your face.
1. No reciprocation to your signals
In any healthy relationship, your feelings are supposed to be reciprocated by actions and signals. When you find yourself falling in love with someone, you are bound to give them signals that hint them about your feelings. Such signals may include, letting them close to you, excessively caring for them, etc. When the fire of love is lit on both sides, in most cases, the other party picks up these signals and responds to them positively. However, when it is only you having feelings, irrespective of how many signals you give them, you will not see any reciprocation. In such a case, it is best to talk your heart and mind out of the relationship as quickly as possible before you get too involved. Our relationship advice for one-sided love is just to move on.
2. You’ll do anything for them even if you don’t want to
Only because you are in a one-sided relationship, you’ll often find yourself doing things that please them at the cost of your discomfort. While it is absolutely fine to do this when the love is returned, it becomes harmful to your inner soul to do so when you don’t see the same effort from the other side. Picking them up from their office after a long day at work, meeting them at their convenient timing and place, doing their household chores, grocery shopping for them and offering your empathy when they need it, are just some of the things that are done when you are in selfish one-sided love. You need to ask yourself the question if it is worth doing these things and later getting hurt when you figure out that they do not have the same feelings for you.
3. You are the one who sends WhatsApp first
When it is only you who initiates any contact through SMS, phone calls or WhatsApp, it is obvious that the other party is not as inclined as you are to engage in a conversation with you. While you yearn to talk to them or be in their company, you’ll rarely see the equal level of longing from them.
Should you notice this as a pattern in any dialogue you have with him/her, it is a sign that you are in a one-sided relationship. Sometimes men don’t text first and there are reasons for that. But you need to know if they don’t text because they are not interested.
In many cases it is almost like an OCD to send him/her a WhatsApp and keep looking at your phone even in the middle of the night to check if they have responded.
4. You are always anxious and stressed
Due to the above-mentioned sign-in point 3, you’ll always be anxious and stressed. Not only that but because you want to please them at any cost, you’ll have self-doubt which will only add to your stress levels. You want to be perfect and ensure that you don’t say or do anything that will end the relationship which only you have in your mind. The other party is least bothered. You do not see any such symptom of anxiety or stress in their behaviour with you. It is only smart to realize this sooner than later and save yourself from health issues such as insomnia, depression and physical fatigue later on.
5. Only you are talking about the future
While you are making plans for the future with them, you’ll see them laugh, ignore or even worse mock about your future plans together. In any conversation you have with him/her, it is only you who talks about doing things together in the future. Discussions on having to make financial plans to planning your next birthday together, all appear to them just like any other passing piece of information. They rarely talk to you about their life. Worst still they might be making plans about their future with someone else, right in front of you, and you are so neck deep in your one-sided love that you are keeping on hoping their relationship won’t work and they would turn to you. This is a one-sided relationship sign that says that nothing’s really going to come out of this hope and it is practical to move on.
6. You’ve been indefinitely waiting for him/her to factor you in
After all the efforts that you have put into this relationship, your wait to hear and see the equal or more amount of love from them seems endless. It is a sign that you have reached the stage of hopelessness in this love affair. He/she does not factor you in any of the decisions they make. You are beginning to think that it is indefinitely going to last like this, is yet another sign of being in a one-sided love relationship. But let us tell you the pain of heartbreak of a one-sided relationship is as intense as a mutual one. When you fall in love, everything becomes magnificent. You feel an inner joy. But when you are in a one-sided relationship you begin to realize that you have not felt happy in quite some time. In such cases, it is advised to look for some of these signals. Step out of the relationship before you start feeling depressed and exploited. This is our relationship advice so that you do not suffer for your unrequited love failure.
