The Allure of Unrequieted Love
An article by Giselle Renarde
I took myself to the Opera yesterday. Fiercely independent women don’t wait for invitations, particularly when Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin comes to town.
Are we all familiar with Pushkin’s epic tale of unrequited love? It’s the story of a young, country girl, Tatyana, whose life is turned upside down when Eugene Onegin arrives on the scene. Tatyana falls head over heels for Onegin, staying up half the night to write him an impassioned letter expressing her fierce love. The suave Onegin rejects her advances, sending the poor bookworm spiraling into despair. Since it wouldn’t be an opera without a duel, Onegin flirts with Olga, Tatyana’s sister, and ends up shooting Olda’s fiancé.
Don’t you just hate it when that happens?
Many years later, we rejoin Onegin the wanderer at the Prince’s ball. What a shock when he finds the paunchy old prince has married none other than Tatyana. Of course, now that she’s royalty Onegin can’t resist Tatyana. He sweeps her into a private room, falls to his knees kissing her hands and pours his emotion into song. What girl could resist? Struggling against temptation, Tatyana does. “Having stifled the sinful flame,” she leaves Onegin alone and despairing. The fervor of unrequited love governs this opera every step of the way. Each in turn, both Tatyana and Onegin are impassioned and anguished.
As an erotic fiction writer, I’m constantly met with the demand for happily-ever-after story endings, but my secret fetish is unrequited love.
Misery loves company and I love misery. Why? Happy endings seem somehow fraudulent. How many people live happily ever after? A few, perhaps, but the vast majority lead lives of quiet desperation, of seeking and longing, of loving fruitlessly.
All this is leading up to an unsurprising confession: I have once more fallen in lust with a married individual. What a shocker, right? The Queen of the Mistresses has new prey in her sights. But I must say, I’ve been trying extra hard not to head down this road again. I’m excruciatingly happy right now, but painfully aware that the high highs are always balanced out by low lows.
What’s more, my endless flirtation has proven unyielding. That’s not to say unnoticed. I don’t say goodbye, I say, “I’ll flirt with you tomorrow.” She says, “Anytime,” not, “Leave me alone, you whorey little freak.” I grab her and she grabs me back. There’s plenty of touch, touch, touch, but that’s the extent of it so far. When I recommended we make out, I was shot down, just like poor Tatyana. Gently so, but still...
She talks about her partner all the time. That’s never a good sign. What’s worse, she has nothing but wonderful things to say.
Usually, I’m a sexual pusher. Once the switch is flipped, nobody can turn me off until I get what I want. I’ve decided not to take that approach that this time. I’ll enjoy the ride, enjoy the flirtation, but I’ll remember that this one’s destined for the unrequited love bin.
And what is it about the very idea of Destination Misery that gets me so excited? It’s this, I’ve decided: I’m an emotional masochist. I get off on loving and not being loved in return, being the lover and not the lovee.
Why would any sane person be so thrilled at the idea of unrequited love? I’ve been wondering that for years, and only now has the answer solidified in the Jell-o mould that is my mind: unrequited love is never fulfilled and is thus never-ending. All good things must come to an end, but the sweet sting of a never-formed relationship goes on forever.
Just think about the heteronormative progression of events: You fall for somebody and you want her. You pursue her and you get her. You get married and live happily ever after. THE END. The end, you’ve achieved your goal, it’s finished, and all you’ve got left is some annoying person in your face all the time until you can’t remember what you ever saw in her to begin with.
That never happens with unrequited love. The goal is ever-present, because it’s never achieved. My aim is to sleep with this new married person. The way things are going, it looks like that’ll never happen, which means I’m blessed with the pleasure of pursing her through ruthless flirtation forever and ever and ever.
What is the delight in a story, an opera, where love is unrequited? There is no orgasm, the goal is not achieved, and the story starts over, leaving you to taste that bittersweet pain again and again.
Do you find this argument too esoteric to be believed? I can assure you, it’s not. This season, the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Eugene Onegin began with the final scene to convey that the entire opera was being relived again and again in Onegin’s tortured heart.
Originally published July 2009