When we were little kids, it seemed as though stories of love and happy endings charmed the fairytales we once couldn’t wait to read again. It wasn’t until a much older age that we discovered the hardship of a love that deemed to be unrequited. Forming sometimes from just a simple fascination, this experience of an intense, passionate longing for another has proven to be quite universal in our world today.

In February of 1993, a study conducted by psychologist Dr. Roy Baumeister of Case Western Reserve University, along with graduate student Sara Wotman, concluded that 98 percent of the 155 men and women that were tested admitted to having loved someone who did not return the same feelings. This finding, published in “The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,” has raised the unspoken question of whether the pursuer of this unrequited love was truly the only one who would imminently be hurt.

“We rarely hear about the agony of those who are the target of an unwanted love,” said Dr. Baumeister regarding his research, “Literature and film almost always tell the story from the viewpoint of the rejected lover. But both rejecters and would-be lovers can end up feeling like victims.”

The answer, as numerous psychologists have stated, is that in many cases the one being pursued undergoes an equal amount or even more unhappiness than the pursuer. The more than 200 cases of unrequited love that were studied revealed that the unpleasant emotions of frustration, anxiety, and guilt were mentioned a third more often in the accounts of those pursued compared to the accounts of the pursuers. While the pursuers commonly felt a type of optimism and fervor before their eventual disenchantment, the feelings of those pursued often went rapidly from a primary adulation to guilt and bewilderment.

Although the pain created inside a pursuer of unrequited love should never be undermined, one must realize the true debt of an admiration such as this. For love, the one thing that can always give us hope, is something we must try and take with careful care and consideration.