A History of Unrequited Love

            All of the people’s names in this piece have been changed in order to protect their privacy.

            My situation comes mostly from the various forms of abuse I experienced while growing up.  I was sexually abused by a doctor when I was seven and eight years old.  My father emotionally and verbally abused me for my first 20 years.  I was beaten on a regular basis when I was in junior high.  These experiences, among others, told me that I was a worthless piece of garbage.  I knew that no girls or women would ever like me or love me.

            I was a little chubby, and was very self-conscious about it.  I knew it didn’t look good.  I didn’t want anybody to see my bare belly.  I was terrible at sports.  This was embarrassing and humiliating.  Gym class in grade school was coed, too, so everyone saw how bad I was.  They were all bigger, faster, stronger, and more coordinated than I.  I was shorter than everyone else.  I was the butt of many jokes in school, by girls and boys.  It strengthened the belief that no girls or women would ever like me or love me.  This ridicule continued all the way up through high school.

            I saw a few other boys’ penises.  They were all much larger than mine.  My *** has stayed small all my life.  I’ve always worried about what a girl (in my childhood) or a woman (in my adulthood) would think if she saw it.  This also has made me feel unworthy of love.  Only health professionals have seen my genitals during my adult years.

            I had a couple of minor crushes on girls in first and third grade.  My biggest childhood crush came in fourth grade.  My shyness made me turn red and stammer whenever I was around Jill R.  My hands shook, too.  I knew she would never like me.

            I was overwhelmed with regret for never telling Jill how I felt, and ashamed of myself for not having the courage to tell her.  I spent two years admiring her from afar.  I never saw her again after fifth grade.

            In seventh and eighth grade (junior high school), I was bullied constantly.  I was small and weak, with no fighting skills.  I’ve had digestive problems ever since, because they punched me in the stomach many times.  In those two years, I got a stomach ache and diarrhea almost every school day.  I would have to make several trips to the bathroom each day.  I quit eating lunch, then breakfast, too.  It didn’t help.

            I wondered about the impression I made on my classmates.  I figured they would think of me as the boy who had to run to the john every twenty minutes.  The girls probably thought I was disgusting because of that.

            I had a crush on the sister of a friend of mine at that time.  She was a year younger than my friend and I.  I got over her as I went into high school.

            There were many cute girls in high school.  Most knew they were cute, and were very conceited.  There was one girl who was different.  June was one of the cutest girls in the school and was friendly.  We were in home room together, so I saw her at the start of every school day.

            June would actually say hi to me.  She would talk to me like I was a human being when we sat in home room.  We were in a few classes together.  I embarrassed myself a few times in front of her, doing or saying stupid things.  I wondered what she thought of me after that.

            In sophomore year gym class, a teacher’s assistant filmed me without me knowing it.  I was trying to shoot a basket and kept missing.  I tried well over a dozen times.  He showed that film in the study halls he monitored.  Many students, boys and girls, saw that film, and I was the laughing stock of the school.

            By junior year, I had fallen for June – very hard.  I was nervous around her because of that.

            In the second semester of senior year, I grew about three inches.  I was finally not so short anymore.  Only a few people noticed, but it didn’t matter, anyway.  School was over.

            I hated myself for never having the courage to tell any of the girls I liked that I liked them.  I never got to know them well.  They showed no interest in getting to know me.

            I was crazy about a woman who worked at Allstate Insurance with me.  When Stacy was near me, my hands shook.  We worked together for two years.  After she quit, I was over her pretty quickly, but still had my feelings for June.

            When I was at Southern Illinois University, I met an international student.  We became friends.  I wound up being crazy about her.  I knew her for only about two months when she had to return to Japan.  I never heard from her again.  She had told me she wanted only to be friends.  I was broken-hearted over her for several years.

            I continued to have feelings for June from high school, and daydream about her, throughout the 1990s.  It hurt constantly.

            At the dinner/dance of my high school 20-year reunion, there were three of us who were the last to leave.  There was Jill X - a woman who lives in Boston - Mike, and me.  The three of us sat and talked for a while.  They had been friends since high school, but I didn’t really know either one of them.

            She gave us each a hug as we left.  It blew my mind.  I had been starved of affection since I was a little boy, over 30 years before.  That hug felt like waves of sweetness and warmth were flowing through me.  I didn’t know hugs felt like that.  I’ve never forgotten that hug.  To her, though, the hug was just one of many she had given at that reunion.

            Twenty years later, at the 40-year reunion, I saw Jill X again.  I shook her hand.  She said something like “I have no idea who you are” or “I don’t remember you”.  I had understood there was no reason for her to remember me, 20 years after one conversation, but still hoped she would remember me.  It felt like a knife through my heart.

            I kept shaking her hand.  Her reaction could have been much worse.  She could have been angry, gotten nasty, or whatever, but she didn’t.  She was probably just confused.  I think she handled it well.  She remained polite and calm.  I was lost, not knowing what to say.

            I cried that night for the first time since I was a little boy.  It hurt more than anything I’d ever experienced.  I tried to go to the dinner/dance part of the reunion the following night.  I drove there and walked in.  I couldn’t take it and turned around.  I went home and cried again.

            The next two months were the worst.  I couldn’t function.  I felt like all of the pain of my life, all of the abuse, came back at me at once, and joined the pain I felt over her.

            I’ve had Jill X on my mind since that reunion, along with daydreaming about impressing her somehow at some future reunion.  My daydreaming has been the same since I was a boy.  Having this daydream for over 50 years makes me feel like I haven’t matured.  I’m stuck in this rut I formed in grade school.  I’ve known for many years that my daydreams were a waste of time and energy.  I wish I could stop my feelings for her.

            It feels like unrequited love is getting your heart broken over and over and over again, throughout your life.  It seems pointless and a waste of emotion – my love for someone who doesn’t want my love doesn’t do them any good, and it certainly doesn’t do me any good.

            It would be nice if my love for her could at least do her some good, help her in some way.  I wish my love could cure her arthritis, her skin cancer, and anything else that might be affecting her health.  I wish it could keep her warm when it’s cold out, and protect her from all harm.

            I’m scared of what would happen if a woman actually was attracted to me.  I wouldn’t know what to do.  I don’t know how to be romantic or have a love life.  I have a fear of intimacy.  I don’t know how to have sex.  I don’t know how to cuddle or snuggle.  I don’t know how to kiss.  I think if a woman got her face next to mine for a kiss, I would cringe, out of instinct, or reflex.  It wouldn’t be because I didn’t want to kiss her; it would be out of fear of messing up.  Any woman would be disgusted by this, and that would be the end of everything with her.

            I wonder how many other men could relate to this.  No one has been through the same exact set of experiences as I have, but many have led similar lives.  I’m not trying to speak for everyone.  I want to be understood.  I need empathy.  Men have emotions, too, and we hurt.