Obligatory Journal Post- The Return: Limerence is a funny thing.

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”

-Neil Gaiman.

Earlier today, I was clumsily browsing tumblr, and my dashboard was mostly full of posts about love, and heartbreak; the whole shebang.
One thing led to another, and I clicked the 'Unrequited Love' tag.

Wow. Just, wow. I have no words.

There were thousands and thousands of posts, and all of them from different people, pining away for somebody they could never have.

It's heartbreaking, the thought that such a massive part of the general population is always in the throes of a love so... unrequited. The survey people should conduct a worldwide study to give us an estimate of the number of hearts being broken per day. I'm pretty sure the number would be staggeringly huge.
In fact, there's even a neat sounding word for the feeling:
"Limerence: an involuntary state of mind which results from a romantic attraction to another person combined with an overwhelming, obsessive need to have one's feelings reciprocated."

Everyone's well-acquainted with limerence, there's no denying it. When you fall head over heels for someone, their every aspect seems to complement yours in one way or another. You think you both are a perfect fit for each other. A match made in heaven, and all that. You are the sambar to his idly vada, you are the orange tic tacs to her Mollika, that sort of thing.
I, for one, cannot imagine my life without orange tic tacs, or idly vada without sambar. It just DOES NOT SEEM RIGHT.
Therefore, one can imagine how painful it is to watch your 'perfect fit' happy with somebody else, apart from yourself. Pow, right in the feelings, if you ask me.

I suddenly found myself feeling horrible for all those people posting on there. Thousands of people I've never known, and never will. You guys, my heart goes out to all of you.
And it's not like I'm pining away for lost love or anything myself, either.

Gah. This empathy shit is killing me.