LAYLA:
Unrequited is one of the words in Whyte’s book that most calls for ‘consolation’.
It’s a dreadful, corrosive thing- longing for someone who will never love you back. If you’ve felt it, you know. If you haven’t, consider yourself lucky.
But Whyte challenges the traditional definition of the term and proposes that all love is unrequited.
Two quotes particularly struck me: “What other human being could ever love us as we need to be loved?” and “Our love rarely seems to be returned in the mode that it is given.”
It’s true, so often we overlook the love being offered because we’re fixated on our own- how we’ve given it, how we wish it to be returned.
That’s why it’s so important to give some of that love to ourselves. Only we know our deepest unmet needs, the words we’re longing to hear, the ways we want to be cared for. We might try to share these with someone else, but to expect them to always meet them is too much- they have their own needs and boundaries too.
When we start to fill that space ourselves, the foundation steadies and we can recognise what someone else is offering. The smallest gestures begin to hold more weight- revealing a depth of care we might once have missed.
Whyte’s words certainly soften the blow of unreturned affection. If unrequited love exists on a spectrum, and everyone- even those in happy relationships, feels it to some degree- then perhaps it is simply a more acute version of something universal. Like grief, it’s love with nowhere to go.
My experience of unrequited love was difficult- the only thing that helped was shifting my focus away from myself and onto the other person. Even if my instinct that they were right for me was true, it didn’t necessarily mean that I was right for them. When you care deeply for someone, you want them to be happy- even if that means without you.
As hard as it was at the time, I am grateful for it because it introduced me to a depth and intensity of feeling I hadn’t known before.
In the end, no love is wasted- it leaves its mark even if it doesn’t land where you’d hoped.

PATRIZIA:
Measuring the love given or received with the precision of a jeweller’s scale is to condemn it to a premature death. Who would consciously do such a thing? And yet, as the author explains, we live in societies so spasmodically centred on the individual and their needs— to be satisfied in a thousand ways—that even love can end up being treated like a consumer good: I gave you this much, I expect this much back. Whyte also highlights the unfair tendency to meticulously count what we give while undervaluing what we receive, a fault that at some point we have all being guilty of.
His reflections brought back to mind what Kundera wrote in The Unbearable Lightness of Being: ‘perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something (love) from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to them demand-free and asking for nothing but their company.’
Loving in order to receive love is part of our nature, but a love lived under a microscope is a torture that is simultaneously inflicted and endured. Maybe our mistake lies in assigning love a meaning different from its purest form and using it, instead, as a way to measure what we perceive our worth to be.

BRUNELLA:
Who could ever love us in exactly the way we need to be loved?
What love is ever returned in the same way- or with the same intensity- it’s given?
We all love in our own unique way. So love can’t really be measured or weighed. In essence, that is Whyte’s thoughtful advice. The poet-philosopher offers this comfort:
“Even if it isn’t returned, love is a magnificent, temporary, seasonal blessing—like an alignment of stars that doesn’t appear often in the same part of the sky. A remarkable gift.”
Reading this chapter led me to reflect deeply on love- its many forms and the countless ways it reveals itself.
I’ve been married for sixty-five years, and I know just how delicate the balance is between giving and receiving in a relationship- a balance that is built over time, can be lost, but also found again. You have to choose, every day, to share a life together, and to look at yourself before focusing on their faults. And when it comes to overcoming difficulties and preserving that love, patience is essential.
At ninety, I think I understand mature love now- the real kind that knows how to give, how to forgive, and how to accept what comes back. My husband and I share deep values, even though we’re very different people and often disagree. Still, we’ve learned to walk through life side by side, supporting each other.
His fidelity has sometimes clashed with his own desires or needs (we married when he was just twenty-two), and yes, that did hurt me. But he’s never lost his sense of responsibility to his family, and over time, his love for me has only grown stronger.
After so many years together, we’ve learned how to be close when we need to be, and give each other space when we need that too.
Having four wonderful children has also been central to holding everything together.
I don’t believe you need to be loved in exactly the same way you love someone. What matters more is that your emotions, thoughts and outlooks are compatible enough to meet in the middle.
My husband and I were engaged for five years. There was plenty of attraction, but not much space to really talk and get to know each other properly. Back then, it was never just “you and me” -it was always “you, me, friends, sisters, brothers…”
Things are very different now.
So my advice to anyone in that magical, slightly surreal stage of falling in love- when everything feels overwhelming- is this: talk as much as you can. Ask questions and answer honestly, truly confide in one another, and then make a conscious choice, so as not to live with regrets.