Breaking Hearts: The Two Sides of Unrequited Love

This is a book so good that I bought it after having had access to a free inter-library loan copy. Tremendous insights. Mesa AZ

This is one of the best books a person in an uneven relationship could read. It is one of the few books (maybe the only one) that delves into what it is like to be a rejector, which is helpful for readers on both sides of the relationship. It also addresses the hidden assumptions about love and relationships can create problems when a new relationship fails or begins to falter. The book is based on the authors' research and findings from social psychology. The tone is academic but it is engaging because the subject matter is handled so well. The information is invaluable, because for most sensitive readers looking for direction in such a relationship, knowing what the other person is probably feeling gives you a better idea of what to do. So, for example, some persistence in a potential love relationship can be flattering, but once you start getting signals to stop, the harder you make the rejector work to get rid of you, the more they are going to dislike you. Lessions like this are punctuated with first person accounts that bring them to life. Warning: there are no sidebars, pictures, diagrams or funny quotes, and there are no bullet points "do's and don'ts" that you might find in a regular trade paperback on the topic. Nevertheless, this book does a real service.

Baumeister has a somewhat unusual approach among social psychologists -- rather than solely relying on surveys that supply easy numbers immediately, he gathers rambling discussions, written or spoken, and analyzes their content. He also draws on literary and historical data along with current empirical work (his own and others'). As the subtitle notes, Breaking Hearts is about the *two sides* of unrequited love. "The rejector's experience is of particular interest in this work because it has been shrouded in neglect and mystery. We shall seek to make clear what it is like to be the target of unwanted romantic affections, by relying on people's firsthand accounts of what they did and felt when they found themselves in such a situation" (p. 17). Of particular interest is the contrast between the accounts of the pursuer and the rejector as to "what really happened".The authors look for and find commonalities among stories, AND they highlight individual statements that illustrate rules and exceptions. So we learn that, e.g., "roughly half of the people interviewed felt that...", but we also read detailed passages from individual interviews. The combination makes the book both engaging and believable. It's thorough scientific inquiry, the numbers are all here, but the subjective feel of things is presented too.The writing's a little repetitive at times, but that's a minor detraction. Overall: quite interesting reading. Offers a new and deeper perspective than most of us probably have about something that's very commonplace.

Carefully researched and very interesting-this is a rare look into the nature of unrequited love from both points of view. Well written and insightful.