One-way Attraction!

I kind of hate the stereotype for one-way attraction. Why am I declared an asshole simply for being attracted to someone who doesn’t feel it back rather than for something actually wrong I did or said? It’s ridiculous.

Recently, another person judged me on non-mutual feelings to the point where they tried to make me agree that I was the problem and harassing someone simply due to my one-way feelings. And I do mean simply. Let’s call them Cel. Cel had never seen me with the person I was attracted to nor met either one of us. I gave them a partial story of me and a friend with whom I was in love (I pointed it out to them that I was keeping some parts out of the story as my friend didn’t want them shared). Cel then added elements to the partial story and altered my words to suit their bias of the horrendous stereotype and threw it in my face as “the truth”.

When people actually saw me interact with the person to whom I was attracted, everyone assumed we were good friends. Until they found out how I felt. Then they decided I was harassing my friend, stalking them, and that my friend wanted nothing to do with me but wouldn’t tell me. How did my friend’s behaviour change from expressing “obviously good friends” to “obviously being harassed” simply due to my feelings? More accurately, others finding out about my feelings.

Cel claimed that my friend choosing me for activities and offering themselves to give me a ride was solely to be nice and polite. Cel took everything I had told them and turned it into something bad. Me asking my friend general questions about their life (what’s new at work/school? Any new lovers? What are they like?) was changed to me trying to control them and convince them that they can’t make good choices. Just me asking questions. This literally had nothing to do with my real or made up reaction. And me checking on my friend after not hearing from them after a week or 2 was said to be me being possessive. Me confiding in my friend about a serious health issue was changed to me trying to manipulate my friend into loving me. If that wasn’t ridiculous enough, Cel even claimed that my friend should have deemed me a manipulative liar because believing my issue was so absurd because of my feelings. Of course they didn’t supply any arguments to show how my feelings for anyone would affect the realness of a health issue. The best part of all this (sarcasm) is those same behaviours of mine towards friends for whom I didn’t feel anything extra were deemed completely fine according to Cel.

It pisses me off because Cel is far from the only one to think like this in my society. How do people think that this makes sense? And how come no one asks the other person if they feel harassed? People just assume it based on the situation typically being a little awkward as if they know the relationship better than those involved.

We were both aware of my feelings and that it wasn’t ideal plus, in my case, I knew that I sometimes over-do it when I express myself so I made sure to ask my friend if we were good when they seemed to pull away. Any issues were normal friend stuff and they said they wanted to keep our relationship. I believed them but most people I spoke to decided that they were lying (those people knew of my feelings which is important since that was their argument for the lie accusation) and some even laughed at me for checking with my friend about potential issues. According to Cel, my friend was “obviously” lying to me every time because people can only have one reason behind their behaviour in our situation, therefore, any pulling away must be due to me because everything I do must be related to my attraction to my friend. And their proof? Cel claimed to be right because people who aren’t harassing others don’t need to inquire about any potential issues in a relationship.

I just don’t understand why people think it’s stupid and wrong to ask the person themselves how they feel about something. How else am I supposed to know? Worse, same as with their previous statements, Cel said if the feelings weren’t there or if I were dating my friend, then absolutely none of the above would be true. Despite mostly focusing on Cel, this kind of thinking is far from unique in my society. I get laughed at and declared an asshole basically for caring about my friend, making sure that I wasn’t making them uncomfortable and for believing them all because other people believe that those who feel unreciprocated feelings towards someone aren’t capable of true friend behaviour. How can people honestly believe this huge difference exists solely due to non-mutual feelings? As if none of us can treat those who aren’t interested back decently and sometimes truly be friends with them? Not all of us just put up with them until they date us or have sex with us because fun fact, that’s not a real friend. Respect and attraction are 2 separate things. If someone only respects another while they’re sleeping together or while under the impression that they will eventually sleep together, fun fact (number 2), that person doesn’t actually respect them. Some of us are very much capable of respecting someone and being attracted to them, mutual or not.

[tangent to related rant]
People truly seem to think that they can determine our personality without even looking at all the facts, including behaviour right after the rejection from both people. There are times when the one who does the rejecting assumes that we’re a jerk because they don’t feel anything back all the while ignoring their negative treatment of us no matter how we treat them right after the rejection. When we respond negatively to the negative treatment, we take all the blame instead of it being shared as it should be. Worse is when the one who did the rejecting uses us or full-on disrespects us. It ranges from not a big deal to messed up. After discovering that the person is interested in them, they’ll continue being friendly and take advantage of the other’s feelings. Some things are small like getting them to wait in line for them or to hold their stuff but some people cross a big line. One example in my life: I was with friends at a restaurant and among them were 2 friends with this one-way attraction. They were both female and saw themselves as women. The one who was attracted to their friend wore a zippered sweater that they refused to zip down despite the warm weather. The friend who felt nothing extra asked, “Why don’t you want to unzip? Are you not wearing anything underneath?” Before my friend could even answer, the person grabbed the zipper and yanked it down feeling that it was appropriate behaviour because my friend was attracted to them.

In the case above and too many others, the person who doesn’t feel the extra feelings accuses the other of wanting it or asking for it. Everyone just accepts it as the truth. No one ever bothers to ask how we feel about what happened. This behaviour is disgusting and somehow we take the blame being accused of “obviously” having done something because we have certain feelings that aren’t shared. It’s completely absurd.