Here's the big, fat universal truth about unrequited love...

It hurts. Period.

It holds you in its fiendish grip and it squeezes the life out of you. It makes you feel physically ill and turns you into someone with a single-minded obsession that rages inside your head day and night. Make him love me. Make him see me, make him love me...It's exhausting and draining and constantly chaotic. And, eventually, it becomes completely all-consuming. It becomes the thing that defines you. Loving him, and not being loved back, becomes everything.

Profound, hey? Great insight, don't ya think? I know, because Iwrote an article about it once. As a freelance writer for various women's magazines I write all kinds of articles about these very things:

How To Tell If A Man Just Isn't That Into You.

How To Get Out Of The Friendzone.

And of course...

How To Get Over Unrequited Love.

But you think I would take my own advice. What's that saying about the shoemaker's children having the worst shoes? Well, I was like that. Except now I only had one shoe. Not that any of the articles I writehave any real basis in scientific fact or proven theory, though. The most research I do is typing something into the Google bar.

I was still sitting in my little car on the side of the road. I was squeezing the steering wheel so hard that my fingers were about to fall off. I clenched my jaw; it felt like I might crack a tooth. I closed my eyes tightly and tried to will away the avalanche of tears that had been streaming down my face for the last five minutes. I was like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, desperately trying to hold it all back. But I was failing, and now, it was just spewing forth with the pent-up vengeance that was three, long, painful years in the making.

Because Matt was it.

If I couldn't have him, then there was no one else for me. Of course my friends were all very fond of pointing out how utterly irrational that thought was. But it was what I'd thought every single day, at least ten times a day, for the last three years. I'd thought it so damn much that now I genuinely believed it. If not Matt, then who?

I glanced in my rear-view mirror, there were hardly any cars on the road at this time and no sign of THE BOSS, DIVORCED or Matt. I pulled back onto the road and started driving in the direction of my hotel. Matt and most of the engagement party were staying there and the prospect of bumping into them was more than a little horrifying. So as soon as I reached the hotel, I ran to my room and threw myself in.

But once inside, I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I was experiencing a kind of prickly anxiety that was making me want to pace the room and scratch my arms. And so I did. I walked and scratched the psychosomatic itch that was emanating from the inside, that no amount of scratching could fix.

This was not how I'd seen this situation playing out. And, believe me, I'd seen it play out many times before. There had been many nightswhen I'd lain in bed playing the scenario out over and over in my head. Firstly, in my scenario there had been no audience. And secondly, Matt was meant to look at me adoringly, love emanating from his eyes, open his mouth and...

"Oh my God! Yes. Yes. I love you too, Val. I've always loved you. I've loved you since that day we kissed in the lift (in my version he remembers the kiss). I love you! I choose you!"

Or some such variation of the above. Anything other than what he'd said tonight.

"I'm so sorry, Val, I had no idea. I've never thought about you like that. You're my best friend. You're family."

A stab of pain, mixed with embarrassment, kicked me in the gut again. Although, I'm not sure you can even call this embarrassment. This feeling transcended any normal understanding of embarrassment. This was nothing like the feeling I'd gotten when I'd had my legs up in stirrups at the gynaes, and a strange man had walked in thinking his wife was in that room. Or the feeling I'd gotten when my nephew had found the vibrator in my drawer, turned it on and run around the house with it thinking it was a toy while my parents were visiting.

No, this was nothing like that. This was something else entirely.

DIARY ENTRY

25 Feb.

Dear Diary,

He is not an asshole. He is not boring. He is, in fact, one of the funniest, coolest, nicest guys I've ever met. Just come back from Matt's housewarming party. It was very interesting. Matt's friends were all very "finance-y." They all thought it was fascinating that I was a freelance features writer. They asked so many questions, as if I was some kind of exotic species that they had only just discovered living under a mossy fern in the Amazon.

But I did get to spend a lot of time with Matt. And I don't think I'm imagining it, but we really bonded. We have the same sense of humor, the same dislike of French foods: frogs' legs, foie gras, escargots. We both like beer, pizza with pineapple on and watching rugby (maybe me for different reasons to him, though. Truthfully, I only became a fan of the sport after seeing those calendar pictures of the rugby players wearing nothing but strategically positioned balls.)

I also watched out for all the signs tonight too, and this is what I think:

1. He initiates conversation—Check! As soon as I walked in the door.

2. He listens and remembers what you say—Yes! At the beginning of the night I told him how I liked my martini, and at the end of the night, he still remembered.3. He leans forward when you talk—Yes. But to be fair, the music was loud. So not 100% sure about this one.4. He makes direct eye contact and smiles—Yes.5. He compliments your appearance—Not sure. He complimented my fitbit—said he liked the color of it and asked if it was any good.

On a bad note, he still hasn't said a thing about the kiss and I am starting to genuinely believe that he doesn't remember it.

More later...