There is a nice person of the appropriate sex who you are casually acquainted with. This person has through repeated meetings with you fallen in love with you. Now I’m not talking nut cases who saw you once in the supermarket and realized that you were destined to be theirs. No stalkers. Just a nice person who happens to be in love with the person you are.
Now given that one or the other or both of you are involved in a relationship already.
The question is, would you want to know?
My answer to this is yes. I would like the person to tell me privately that they have these feelings but realize that they can’t act on them. I think I would feel better just knowing that I had elicited such deep feelings in another.
How 'bout you?
BTW this is the first thread I have started. Sorry it couldn’t be more profound.
Not only no but Hell, no! The times I’ve found out about this kind of love have just about destroyed my entire life. It’s amazingly hard for a pre-existing relationship to compete with starry-eyed adoration from someone new. However, that adoration has no foundation, whereas the relationship I’m already in exists for a reason: it works.
I’m hesitant to say yes because of the prospective deluge from secret Doper adorers who would rush to email me with their confession. Heh.
I’d love to know of a crush–a couple of years ago one of our work-study students admitted he had a crush on me. It was sweet and a little ego boost for moi as well.
Love? That ought to make me happy, too, but truthfully it would bother me to think that I was somehow causing him hurt because I can’t reciprocate (Cranky is happily married). I’ve got an ex who reports that he still loves me and regrets breaking up with me. While it was very satisfying to hear that at first–especially because he knows me, and his feelings aren’t idealistic or baseless–it became painful. When I got engaged, it was such joyful news to share with family and friends (BTW, congrats Montfort & Anniz!)… except telling him was really difficult and I dreaded it. I think there is more strain between us than there would be if I didn’t know he still had those kinds of feelings. If I could just get him married off… Any takers? He’s wonderful!
Okay, so bottom line is, no. I guess. Crushes are fine. Secret love, no. If I were single, the story would be different.
I would think no.
Relationships are hard enough (trust me on that one) without that monkey-wrench being thrown in the works.
Actually I was in a similar situation about five or so years ago. I was completely infatuated with a woman I worked with. We had become good friends, but I was smitten. She, at the time, was living with an abusive boy-friend. I tried to advise her to leave him, for reasons both altruistic and selfish. She didn’t, but later I tried to make a move on her at a party anyway, only to be politely shunned.
“You know I can’t do this …” kind of thing.
I was embarrassed and immediately felt like a heel for giving it a go.
Bottom line – relationships, even fragile ones, shouldn’t be messed with.
Wow. I’m totally surprised that only one person (aside from Degrance) says yes!
IMHO, I think it’s a crime to say no, for two reasons. First, it’s selfish. Once this person has fallen for you (let’s assume it’s a Him), the relationship is altered. You not knowing, or studiously ignoring, his condition is only going to bring pain to both of you, eventually. Obviously, much more so to the love-smitten one. Getting these feelings out in the open will help resolve the situation quickly, and even if the friendship has to end, his pain is nipped in the bud. That’s the worst that can happen. At best, you return the feelings. In the middle, there’s the Limbo Friendship, where you know but don’t return his feelings, but at least it’s out there and he’s not suffering the I Need To Tell Her Because Maybe She Feels The Same Way agony, you know? [is it obvious I’ve been there?]
Secondly, coming from someone who has a hard time finding relationships, I can hardly think of a better way to take love and relationships for granted than to not want to know. Who knows, maybe you’ll actually like the person! It could be the best thing that ever happened to you! Spiritus Mundi might agree with me here.
I’ve been on both sides of this fence, and I say emphatically, Hell Yes!
Well, I’d have to respectfully disagree. I’ve also been on the other side of the fence. I fell in love with a coworker who was a very close friend of mine. We spent tons of free time together, and this love thing happened slowly; I didn’t realize it for several years. Not sure if he felt the same, but damned certain that if he didn’t the friendship would be compromised, I chose kept it to myself. I dated some other people and tried to move on. And I did, eventually.
I guess it helps that I don’t believe that there is only one right person for everyone. I believed I’d find someone else. Had I not, perhaps I’d have eventually confessed. I dunno. But it wasn’t awful for me (other than agonizing over whether to tell). The downside is, he’s still single. Maybe it would have been better for him if I’d made him wake up and see I loved him, (maybe he woulda reciprocated, and I’d be squeezing out babies by him as we speak :-)) but who knows?
I realize that it might ruin whatever relationship that I’m in or they’re in, but not in every relationship the two people involved are in love, and if you find someone who you are really in love with, and you pass up that opportunity (sp?). Then you chould be cheating yourself out of the other half of yourself.
For my entire short life (ok…mabie not my entire life, but at least after 7th grade), i’ve been looking for someone who I would love and would love me. I’ve had plenty of crushes, but never anything that approached love, and i have always looked foward to the time that i still feel is inevitable that i will find the woman who completes me. You know exactly what i’m talking about, this is the type of love that they write poems about, and that few people today seem to attain. You can say that i’m naive, or just stupid, but i don’t think that i could settle for anything else, and if i thought that i had the opportunity to find this other half, i wouldn’t hesitate for a second (ok…mabie i would, but i’m sure that my final decision would be to go for the person who I love).
And if I wasn’t in love with this person, then i wouldn’t leave whoever it is that i was with…it’s as easy as that, but without knowing something like that, you could change your entire life.
AHHHHHH! This makes me want to pull my hair out. “who knows?” I could never live with myself! I admire your ability to stow that away and move on, Cranky. You’re a better person than I!
Being entirely unattached at the moment, I would wish to know. Actually I think I’d want to know anyway, relationship or not. There might be a reason to break up with the person I was with. The new girl might be better for me. Or I might decide I was better off with the person I was with. Regardless, it would be better than never knowing.
I would want to know because it would mean that there is someone in the world, other than my wife, who cares. It would shoot my self confidence thru the roof.
Being one that has only crossed the fence once or twice in his live (meaning, almost all of my love interest were people that I knew wouldn’t be interested in me), I know it complicates matters too much if you tell. I can advise everyone one that unless you are absolutely sure that the friendship is not going to suffer, DO NOT TELL! It is not nice for the person with the crush to have the ‘crushed one’ disappear from his life because of such a small matter as infatuation.
I’ve lost several friends because I told them I was in love with them. If I hadn’t, they would probably still be friends, and I would have grown over the initial feelings. After a while, those people that you were in love with, will become people that you just love because of friendship.
If the other person is in a relationship and you’re not - no. You have no right to place such a burden on someone who may be happy with their SO.
If you’re in a relationship and the other person isn’t - yes. But be sure to end your relationship first, because it’s obviously not going anywhere, and your other half has a right to know the relationship is over, rather than being used.
Most posters seem to feel that love = relationship and that declaring love automatically would end any relationships those involved are in.
What I was really talking about is someone telling another, “Look don’t leave your spouse or anything but I have come to love you.” Not, “I love you and I can’t live without you!”
So let me rephrase.
Some one comes up to you and says, “Look don’t leave your spouse or anything but I have come to love you.”
