Wanting that which does not belong to you

[Emily]

Upon reading the post about dealing with loneliness, I introspected on my own life and a sense of longing I am having even though I do have people that I share values with and am close to.

For many years, I have admired a man I know. He is exactly what I am looking for in a man and I have never found an equal to him. I chased him romantically, but was unsuccessful. Now he is one of my closest and most valued friends. He has had a very positive influence on my life. My admiration of him has given me additional motivation to improve myself and to actively pursue my goals. He has also gotten me to try new things which I now enjoy very much, like playing tennis. Usually I see him 2-3 times a week. I value this time with him and am satisfied with our friendship. I do not want to pursue a relationship with him for two reasons. The first is there is a lack of something which keeps him from having the same feelings for me. Secondly, he now has a girlfriend.

For the past week, his girlfriend has been in town. Being that this is the only time he can spend with her, he has let it be known that he does not want to be disturbed while she is here. I have chatted some in the past with his girlfriend online and find that I like her very much and am eager to meet her. I also think that if she is better suited for him, that it is better that he be with her.

I would like to meet her very much. At first, this was because I was curious to what type of woman could be so incredible that she could win the object of my affection. Once I started talking to her, I found that I had a much stronger reason to want to meet her. I have never met another woman that I could talk with so freely and about things that interest me. Usually when I talk to women it is boring small talk and nothing of substance. With her, I found that we had common interests and a common view on how we deal with things. Meeting her would allow me to confirm this, as well as enjoy the company of a new found friend. I know, however, she is not in town to see me. I cannot expect to see her, although she has said that she thinks that it is likely we will meet before she leaves.

I have been having some unexpected difficultly with the situation. I think it is totally reasonable for him and her to want to spend time alone, however I miss spending time with him. I find myself thinking about the fact that I cannot contact him, frequently. There is another thing, too. I still admire him and I'm not sure what to do with my admiration. I know it is likely that I will never be in a romantic relationship with him again. How did Rearden handle knowing that he would never have that which he loved, because she had found John Gault? He had lots of work to do rebuilding the world, but wasn't he lonely knowing that he would never have someone he could share it with in a way greater than friendship? If the man I admire really is the best, as Dagny was the best, what should I do?

[necrovore]

You have my sympathy. I have a friend who is going through something similar right now (and I just told him these same sorts of things). I've been through it myself, too, but I don't talk about it much.

In the short term, you have to find something else to occupy your mind. You will not think it can possibly work, but it will, even though only a little at first.

In the long term, if the man you want is unavailable to you, you will have to find someone else; it can be hard to do, especially if you are very selective (as you should be), but it can be done.

I have to admit there is something poetic about the idea that Francisco and Rearden would have loved Dagny too much to ever find other women, but at the same time I kind of doubt that would be the case. I'm sure they, too, would have eventually warmed to the idea of finding someone else. But it might have taken a year or so, and it would have been beyond the scope of the novel.

You will be all right.

[tps_fan]

At first I thought that I didn't have much personal experience to draw from which I could use to answer you, but upon further thought I actually can speak to this somewhat. Rather than thinking in terms of unrequited romantic love, I will refer to the more general relationship type of friendships.

Long story short, one of my better friends moved geographically farther from me to be with his girlfriend. (They also moved to be closer to their respective work sites as well.) If I recall correctly, he and I actually talked a bit about how it would be harder for him to hangout with me due to positive changes in his romantic relationship. Logically, the situation was beyond reproach. Still, while I knew what was to come in the near future, I couldn't help but be in some emotional pain. There is simply no getting away from the partial loss of a major value, but (as always) the first thing to do is to face the situation head-on. I quickly realized that I would _much_ rather that he be successful in finding his top values than for me to have greater access to him since that would require a sacrifice on his part. Given the Objectivist ethics, you can see how this situation would not benefit either him or me if he were to fail to pursue his romantic interests. (Altruism is a wicked joke on the unsuspecting because that ethical code always eventually backfires.)

There is another point that Ayn Rand tended to raise with regard to business relationships. Even if someone is turned down for a job, that person still has the option of looking for other work. Obviously, work and romantic love can't substitute for each other, but the point can be generalized. There are actually other people worth actively searching out in the hope of establishing similar relationships. (I'm not assuming anything, but if in your heart of hearts, you want more from him than a friendship, then you are going to have to be braver and stauncher _and_ more careful.)

More specifically, you apparently want to be friends with both of those people. It's easy to overlook the fact that each individual relationship has its own requirements. Also, keep in mind that it would be risky to attempt to use another relationship as a substitute for an older relationship without examining the circumstances of that older relationship.

To get closer to your concerns and to put this in concrete form. The woman you want to befriend is someone you would have to go through your male friend to contact. Also, you still seem conflicted as far as how you feel about him goes. If I were you, then I would start with what you are most sure of and with what you and he have the most invested in. In this case, it would seem that it's your friendship with him that is the most valuable.

You can be concise and circumspect when first talking with him, but you need to ask him how the two of you can spend more time together as friends if it's possible. At the same time, you need to be prepared for rejection. I would say that if he is really your friend he should be (and likely would be) willing to forthrightly answer your most general questions.

It's incredibly common for people to have unrealistic expectations when the conditions of personal relationships change. It takes patience and work to properly assess a relationship's status. Ultimately, you should focus on what you want the most and work to maintain those priorities accordingly.

To sum this up in brief, talk to him, but don't hold out expectations that run contrary to the history of your friendship with him _or_ to the fact that your relationship with him must change in order for _both_ of you to be happy. If you think you can offer him better solutions, then your best bet is to make rational arguments that point to your shared values as the source for growth.

[stellavision]

I sympathize. In the past, I have spent a good deal of time admiring men who weren't interested in me, and being close friends with those men both because I enjoyed "hanging out" with them, but also because I hoped for something more.

As tps_fan says, of course it hurts when you partially lose a major value. But, it may be a good thing to spend less time with this man whom you can't have. Both because the more time you spend with him, the more it hurts when you realize you can't really have what you want from him, and because, if you are seeing this man 2 or 3 times a week, that's 2 or 3 opportunities a week you could be using to find someone who will value you fully and want a romantic relationship with you. I'm not saying you need to go cold turkey, but cutting back could help you both to hurt less and to pursue a romantic relationship with someone whose heart is free for you.

What to do with your admiration? I've found that of the three men I've hopelessly admired in the past, two of them, while fine for nonromantic friendship, have serious incompatibilities with me that not only make them inappropriate for a romantic relationship, but that caused me to stop admiring them in that manner (one is religious, the other is a bit flaky and doesn't have a great deal of ambition). The third is sort of like Hank Rearden to my Dagny Taggart (except, of course, that Dagny's love for Hank was requited!). That is, he's still an admirable, wonderful man -- but I've found one I like even better. And once that happened, my admiration for my friend became just that, admiration for a friend, and all of my romantic interest transferred to my boyfriend. What to do with admiration between now and when you do meet Mr. Right, though? I think it's a wonderful thing to contemplate exactly what you love about your friend, and use that to form your mental template of what you want in a romantic partner. Which qualities that you love about him are the essentials, and which are just window-dressing? (For example, you could love that a man is passionate about his law career, and realize that the important thing is the passion for a career, not that he's passionate about law in particular.)

[4reason]

He is exactly what I am looking for in a man and I have never found an equal to him. ...

How did Rearden handle knowing that he would never have that which he loved, because she had found John Gault? He had lots of work to do rebuilding the world, but wasn't he lonely knowing that he would never have someone he could share it with in a way greater than friendship? If the man I admire really is the best, as Dagny was the best, what should I do?

A similar question I would ask, based on my own experience, is what does someone do after they have met "John Galt" and lost him? I can certainly sympathize with your pining affection, for my experience in love has left me asking many of the same questions. I was in a relationship for several years with the man who introduced me to objectivism, but due to an act of evasion on my part --which stemmed purely from a lack of self-esteem on my part, not any malisciousness toward him-- he recently let me go. It hurt at first, but the more I was left think about it the more I realized it had to be done. I had not been in the relationship because I was not yet confident in who I was; I also created little lies to cover up what I considered to be my inadequacies with him and with others and had done so for most of my life. Where that lack of self-esteem came from exactly, I don't know, but my best guess would be that it had to do with my mother passing on her own sense of failure and inadequacy onto me so she would no longer have to be the only one suffering (loving, huh?). I always understood his heroic qualities from the beginning,but my failure to understand myself lead me to reverse cause and effect in the realtionship: I started to value myself because I thought "wow,if someone like him says he loves me, I must be a great person." Wrong, wrong, and wrong. I am guilty of having wanted the effect of the relationship -love, passion, children, all of that-- without having realized what the necessary preconditions were to achieve that. Namely, two people who are certain of who they are, what they want, and what they would be willing to offer to whom for what purpose.

I, unfortunately, came to realize all of this too late. It took me my entire life, over two decades, to cast off this philosophical sinful tendency of self-doubt I inherited from my mother, and the one person I want to celebrate that victory with is no longer my to have. I dragged him through part of my struggle, and know how I hurt him, but having survived all of this has made me finally love him. I can say it honestly now, with the "I" included because I have finally figured out who I am and what I want, which is helping my philosophy fall in place at last. I am at last that girl he always suspected I could be, but my lie hurt him to badly to be able to see that... for who can blame him for not trusting me?

I hate the fact he doesn't belong to me. I guess he never did, really, because I was never "I" before, but finally seeing who he is from MY perspective makes me admit that I love him completely, totally, and absolutely. I can sympathize with how Dominique hated the thought of Roark walking the streets, that he belonged to the world, in a sense, because that is exactly how I feel about my lost love now. Everywhere he goes he walks past people that do not realize what and who he is, and I hate that. He belongs to everybody but me now, and as much as I hate admitting that, the fact that I am now capable of knowing just what greatness he possesses is in itself enough to make me happy. I could be happier, sure, but I can't erase what I did. I can only take what I've learned and apply it to my own life and keep on living.

You can guess that my mother thinks this is an absolutely senseless asd selfless decision, to keep loving him, an accusation to which I smiled and said "This is the most selfish thing I've ever done" (selfish in the moral sense, of course). Everyone thinks I'm nuts, but nuts to them. I know a lot of nice people, but no one else who thinks philospohically in the way he does or understands the significance of having philosophical integration in one's life the way I do now. I don't find myself able to be attracted to even the most attractive men, and the thought of sharing myself with anyone but the man I had makes me physically ill. Maybe it is futile to love him, but I don't think it's futile to worship a great man. Even if he cannot accept me as a romantic possibility in his life, just knowing he exists is enough to set my heart on fire. I don't know that I will ever look for another; it's hard to say. I suspect not, though, because if there's anything I have taken from this experience it's that I now know exactly what I want, and value myself too much to make any compromises. If that means I live out the rest of my life without romantic fulfillment, I can handle that. At least I'll be able to say I never settled for anything less than I deserved.

I am not, however, encouraging you to take this same path, but it does sound like grappling with this issue is causing you to also discover what it is that you want from a relationship. Take that knowledge, and use it to help you find that love that you seek.

[LiberTodd]

I'm sorry to hear that. But look at it this way, at least you can respect the woman he's chosen, right? It would be a million times worse if he had fallen for someone who was utter garbage. Just take this as a lesson learned and be sure to be a little more direct when you meet an equal or greater man. Which you will, I'm sure.

[KendallJ]

How did Rearden handle knowing that he would never have that which he loved, because she had found John Gault? If the man I admire really is the best, as Dagny was the best, what should I do?

A similar question I would ask, based on my own experience, is what does someone do after they have met "John Galt" and lost him?

I have a couple of thoughts here, that are of the "strong medicine" variety. Please don't take anything that follows that in any way minimizes the psychological effort it takes to get over someone you valued and lost. I know it's difficult to do, from personal exprience.

a. Rearden, and Fransisco didn't hang around lonely for the rest of their lives. Nor did they nurse unrequited love for Dagny for the rest of their lives. They dealt with their issues, probably continued to admire Dagny very much, but did not continue to "love" her, and they went out and found another Dagny. I think a significant psychological trap here is thinking that the person you found and now can't have is the only one of his/her kind. Unless your guy/girl is the Bill Gates of values/personality, it just isn't true.

b. If you think love is something that just randomly happens to you, and you have any sort of standards, then chacnes are you'll be waiting a while. If you want love, you should actively go and seek it out. Ellen Kenner discusses this concept I believe in one of her lectures on Love and Romance (don't remember which, check the Ayn Rand Bookstore). This is not to say you target someone, and decide you're going to love them, but rather that you actively understand what it is you're looking for, and put yourself in places where you are most likely to find people like that. Put yourself in a "target rich" environment so to speak. This is even more important for people like us who will have trouble finding people who are a match with our values.

c. I don't want to sound harsh here, but I want to be clear. I think that continuing to nurse and unrequited love is the mark of some sort of inner contradictions. I'm differentiating here between admiration and love. I think one can admire many people who do not return the favor. Dan Edge had a great post a while back on converting an emotional love for someone back into admiration, admiration that you can use to acknowledge the respect you have for them, but not continue to pine away. Love is a 2 way phenomena, you look to see what you value about your character in other people and value that, and at the same time you want that admiration and value returned. Anyone who values themselves does not settle for being able to value someone without in return being valued. At least not continue to call such a thing love.

d. If b and c are true, then this speaks even more for the need to move on, because if you are spending time and emotional energy on an unrequited love, then you most probably are not putting your energies into finding a new love. Which sets up a vicious cycle. The less success you have in finding someone new (because you're not trying as hard as you could be), the more you think and claim this person is really unique, the more you avoid working on finding someone new.

e. If you are thinking "Well, I'm looking for someone new, but I'll just keep nursing these feelings because I like the old person so much and when I find someone, they'll help me get over this person" I would suggest to you that this fantasy. It also makes you less attractive to others you are supposedly seeking. Your nursing of an unrequited love is one of the most unattractive things a prospect would be liable to see in you, especially if the prospect is one who values himself. thejohngaltline had a great post a while back about the mentality that hopes that a new love will fix your flaws and failings. Be Dagny Taggart for a new John Galt; don't expect your new John Galt to get you over the last one. To that end, I would suggest any claims of whether your new search is working or failing be deffered until you have gotten this unrequited love out of your system.

Edited December 3, 2007 by KendallJ

[KendallJ]

The thread I metioned before, as well as Dan's article.