I Don’t Get it, Why Do We Fall In Love With People Who Don’t Even Know Us

Editorial Assistant Alicja Krotofil examines the idea of unrequited love as a universal experience and uncovers why we feel this way

For our annual sex issue, I wanted to explore the theories behind that all too familiar feeling that we all know: unrequited love. We see it in movies, we read about it in books, we feel it ourselves, but where does it come from, and why do so many of us indulge in it when we know that it can only end in pain and heartbreak? 

If you’re unfamiliar, unrequited love is the experience of feeling love for somebody who does not reciprocate. Perhaps you’ve had a crush on someone that you know you could never date because they’re involved with someone else, or you’ve expressed your love to somebody who straight up rejected you, and you still pine after them, or maybe you even have a crush on a celebrity or movie star that will never know you exist. If you’ve experienced any of those, then not only have you been in incredible emotional pain and distress, but you have participated in unrequited love, and if you haven’t…congratulations? 

So here is something true I can tell you right off the bat: we all want to be loved. Love is part of the human experience, and without it, being human feels rather alienating and depressing. We learn about love, and hopefully, most people grow up surrounded by it. It seems logical to assume we can recognise when it’s not being given to us. Let’s imagine you confess your love for your longtime best friend, but they don’t feel the same. After rejection, it feels natural to stop pursuing the path of most resistance and pain, but our brain often points us in the opposite direction. An unhealthy obsession can set off your brain's reward system and feed into an addictive loop, making it incredibly difficult to let go of the person or situation [1]. Falling in love triggers certain neural networks in the brain that light up dopamine pathways, changing your perception of love into one that is rather toxic. In a healthy and mutual relationship, your brain is rewarded adequately, but in unrequited love, you are constantly chasing something—a smile, a kind word, any form of attention—and this chase actually reinforces emotional attachment. Once you’re caught in the addictive dopamine loop, it’s difficult to break free. 

Alright, so here you are, you’ve been sucked into a never-ending loop of dopamine rushes and yearning, but how did you get there in the first place? There are a few existing theories about the origin of one-sided love that takes a person down such a dark alley of emotion. 

Of course, one of the possible and frequent scenarios is an origin out of platonic love. The intimacy and mutual platonic love that already exists in friendships may be encouraging for one of the counterparts to develop romantic feelings for the other [2]. It could be that they were already searching for romantic love, but the closeness and familiarity of their friendship seemed like an open invitation. This development of one-sided attraction could be fostered by so many different factors, including consistent misinterpretation of verbal and non-verbal signals [2], which allows for people to build on emotions they are perceiving, but might not even exist. Our brains are very good at attributing meaning to signs and signals, perhaps even a little too good, it seems. 

Another potential reason for unrequited love could be explained by an inadequate amount of love in someone's childhood and early years. Unfortunately, if you don’t receive any love as an infant, your brain is likely to be hardwired with the chemicals that promote the dopamine-chasing patterns. It’s the exact same chemical process that happens during unrequited love, but at an age when your brain is so plastic, this pattern tends to stick around. An individual who is used to this sort of experience may not even be aware that a normal and regulated amount of dopamine from a healthy relationship is available to them, or they’re used to participating in the unhealthy addiction, causing them to search and seek out similar situations, only hurting themselves further. 

It’s also plausible to say unrequited love can be born out of delusion. Oftentimes, when you’re yearning for somebody who doesn’t feel the same, you create your own story about reality, and your own interpretations of their behaviour, as I mentioned earlier in the article. An aspect of unrequited love, especially in scenarios where you don’t know somebody very well, is that you have the power to twist the story to appeal to your senses, while ignoring what is actually happening. 

Now that you know your brain can betray you and lead you towards such undesirable scenarios, are you angry? A fairly reasonable response, especially considering that in the grand scheme of things, you are just a puppet of thousands of years of biological and evolutionary advancements that made you who you are today. I recommend taking a light-hearted approach. Your brain is excellent at attempting to take the easiest and most readily available path to its goals, which is just how it works. Sometimes the outcomes are not optimal, and you have to be vigilant in recognising when you’re being sabotaged. It is perfectly reasonable to experience all kinds of attraction to all manner of people, even if they are fictional or an idea of someone you’ve constructed in your head, but it is crucial to remain aware of the impacts of pursuing unhealthy obsession. You deserve to be loved by someone who feels the same. Next time you get the feeling that you’re searching for love from someone who isn’t returning it, turn around and walk away, and remember, there is always a person you can love wholeheartedly and rely on to return that: yourself! 

by Alicja Krotofil 

References:

[1] Why We Can Fall for People Who Won’t Love Us Back. (2025). Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/living-forward/202506/why-we-fall-for-people-who-dont-love-us-back

[2] Baumeister, R. F., Wotman, S. R., & Stillwell, A. M. (1993). Unrequited Love: On Heartbreak, Anger, Guilt, Scriptlessness, and Humiliation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(3), 377–394. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.64.3.377