When you’re in love with someone who doesn’t love you like that, and you’re quarantined together
By: Katharine Hope
Tags: Quarantine, Lov, Relationships, Unrequited Lov, Pandemic

We’re all familiar with unrequited love. Whether we’re on the receiving end or the one feeling it, it creates instability and can cause fracturing in our sense of reality. We have trouble piecing together what our hearts want with what is actually happening, especially if there is sincere platonic love and affection present already.

The mind-mixing effects are amplified when you live in a smaller town and almost every piece of your life is threaded together with theirs, they know how you feel but admit that they don’t love you quite like that, you occasionally hook up with them, and you’re in the middle of a pandemic. It’s even worse when you get quarantined together in a 400 square foot apartment for two weeks.

You will inevitably grow closer during those two weeks while living alongside their daily habits. They wake you up with cuddles every morning and then head straight for coffee and npr. Actually, they like npr sprinkled throughout the day, all day. They want to go for a walk every afternoon “like a dog. Want to join?” Their home cooking is incredible and sharing it brings them joy. They have similar taste in movies so it’s easy to agree on what to watch. You both like to unwind with a short yoga session before bed.

Of course, waking up to cuddles from this person is preferable to waking up without them. And you’d normally take your coffee in silence but you find that listening to the news helps focus your mind early on in the day. Walking once a day is what you’d want to do anyway, so it’s easy. You like the same kinds of flavors and their food is delicious.

And then you find out that you each have a skill that the other wants to learn. So you start devising short, easy lessons for the other and coaching them and praising them for their progress. And before you know it, the quarantine is over.

Now you’re back at work (you work at the same restaurant) and the coronavirus fatigue is lingering. You look at each other knowingly when the rush hits and then both end the day exhausted.

A few days after returning to work, they move into the basement of your two closest friends and you see this person a little less often, a little less intimately, and the pain of missing them and their warmth astonishes you.

You’d been in love with them for over a year at this point but that two week quarantine (although not under ideal circumstances) sealed it for you, and you’re wrecked. Your routines remain parallel but separate, just barely separate.

How do you deal with it?

You won’t convince yourself that you don’t love them because that isn’t true; that is avoidance and it will bite you. It’s off the table.

You will wish that they were still there to share the mundane movement of domestic life. But they don’t feel the same way, so they won’t be there. Negotiating this is basically off the table.

This is not the time to plan an escape. There’s a pandemic going on and you have to pay for food and shelter somehow. You aren’t going to quit the job or move away in the near term.

With these things in mind, you’re left with the fact that you are in love with them and will likely find yourself with a decent amount of time alone, and that much of your social time will be spent either with or near them.

So what do you actually do?

Play music. Sing. Do 15 minutes of yoga and a 15 minute meditation. Call anyone. Write with complete candor about everything you’ve been learning and dreaming about. Make connections with other candid people online. Learn a new language. Read. Hike and listen to a grounding podcast. Remind yourself again that you can’t control anyone, that you’re incredibly strong, that it would be hard for anyone in this situation. Be real, this hurts. Continue to talk about what you’re experiencing and what you need. Know that a wholehearted love is out there and the first step toward that is wholehearted love for yourself.