Rhetorical Romance

Sorry I have been gone for so long. I would say it's because I've been busy, and I have been for the most part, but its more that I haven't actually set aside time to write. And am still searching for something to write about. So we'll see where this goes.

Is it possible to have unbiased feelings for someone? My mind just shot through hundreds of threads and directions that this could incorporate, but I don't know if I have the patience to explore everything at this juncture.

The comment was driven by the idea that extensive feelings don't grow until you find out how the other person feels. So I guess 'unbiased' was the wrong word, but maybe uninfluenced, or single-sided, or maybe i should just explain it better.

Cause I'm not talking about someone's action being the deciding factor. But imagine observing someone from afar. Not stalking dammit. But seeing coworkers, classmates, bar-goers. And over time, acknowledging that 'time' is a very loosey goosey term, but over time you start to form ideas, opinions, and if appropriate, feelings. To focus, I am speaking about someone that you could possibly have romantic interest in. So if you take this person in their image, how they interact, how they present themselves, and start to pay attention to smaller details of every day life, you might, once again, over 'time,' fall into some sort of crush/like/minor infatuation. This is not uncommon. I have now adequately described something that pretty much everyone has done, and didn't need explaining, but now I can move forward.

Do these feelings hold any sort of weight when this object of your affection informs you of what they think about the situation? Since I am wildly tired of saying 'they,' I will use a not real, fake, faux example: me as the eye, and a 'she' as the 'focus.'

So I see a girl. I go through everything I just explained. I form feelings. Feelings appear. Feelings mature. However you would like to see the feelings arrive on the scene, there they are. Do they shatter when I find out that she has no romantic interest in me? Do they have to? Is it inevitable to morph my feelings in order to fall in line with this woman? If so, is that fair?

If I like a girl, and she doesn't like me, then I compromise by coming back down to her level of interest, just to make things comfortable? A.) what does that say about my feelings to begin with, and B.) why am I the one that has to compromise?

Which brings me to the alternative. If I have minimal to neutral feelings for someone, but then find out that a girl is crushing on me, does my view of her change? Isn't it natural to? Is this just a case of liking out of your league: thinking the people that like you probably can't do any better, but the people you like would be the best you can find... leading you to quickly stunt recent growing feelings of a crush, but allow new feelings to grow for someone you may never have thought about romantically?

How many relationships start this way? How many relationships are still this way? Does your appreciation for someone depend on their appreciation for you? Is it possible to have legitimate one-sided feelings, besides weathered puppy crushes that plagued most of my teen years?

Honestly, this scares me. It makes it a little harder to A.) recognize how many of my own feelings are true, proven, and unequivocal, and B.) distinguish between someone else's pure feelings for me. This muddled mix oft does not equate, sparking a constant search for missing balance (you knew it was coming). Or an endless search for the perfect balance, resulting in decades of 'never quite good enoughs.' Doesn't this scare you?

Officially, I asked 17 rhetorical questions in that mess.