Unrequited: Women and Romantic Obsession
Lisa A. Phillips, 2015
HarperCollins
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062114013
Summary
Unrequited is a powerful, surprising, and empathetic exploration of one-sided romantic obsession.
The summer Lisa A. Phillips turned thirty, she fell in love with someone who didn’t return her feelings. She soon became obsessed. She followed him around, called him compulsively, and talked about him endlessly. One desperate morning, after she snuck into his apartment building, he picked up a baseball bat to protect himself and began to dial 911. Her unrequited love had changed her from a sane, conscientious college teacher and radio reporter into someone she barely recognized—someone who was taking her yearning much too far.
In Unrequited, Phillips explores the tremendous force of obsessive love in women’s lives. She argues that it needs to be understood, respected, and channeled for personal growth—yet it also has the potential to go terribly awry. Interweaving her own story with frank interviews and in-depth research in science, psychology, cultural history, and literature, Phillips describes how romantic obsession takes root, grows, and strongly influences our thoughts and behaviors.
Going beyond images of creepy, fatally attracted psychos, male fantasies of unbridled female desire, and the platitudes of self-help books, Phillips reveals a powerful, troubling, and surprisingly common phenomenon. As she illuminates this mysterious psychological experience, placing it in a rich and nuanced context, she offers compelling insights to help any woman who has experienced unrequited obsessive love and been mystified and troubled by its grip. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 9, 1968
• Raised—Newtown, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., Oberlin college; M.F.A., University of Pittsburgh
• Currently—lives in Woodstock, New York
Lisa A. Phillips is the author of Unrequited: Women and Romantic Obsession (2015) and Public Radio: Behind the Voices (2006). Her articles have appeared in many national publications, including The New York Times, Psychology Today, Cosmopolitan, Salon, Washington Post, and Boston Globe. A former radio reporter, she has contributed stories to NPR, Marketplace, and other radio programs. She is a journalism professor at State University of New York, New Paltz.
Phillips has received many reporting awards, including several regional Edward R. Murrow awards and a New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault Media Excellence Award. She is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant and writing residencies at Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Ucross, and Jentel. (From the author's website.)
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Book Reviews
I hope they make this required reading not only for every teenage girl in America but for every boy, man and woman,whether partnered or not, because we could all use a dose of its well-researched wisdom.
Washington Post
Unfortunately, there is no cure for the pain of rejection, although researchers are working on it. Until then, Phillips suggests we "honor passion by confining and using it instead of letting it diminish us."
Chicago Tribune
Phillips explains the psychology and biology of extreme love—not so different from OCD or addiction—and notes the damaging tendency to excuse stalkers if they are women.
Pacific Standard
Phillips writes of the obsession that "changed me from a sane, conscientious college teacher and radio reporter into someone I barely knew—someone who couldn't realize that she was taking her yearning much, much too far.
Chronogram Magazine
Phillips is a fluid storyteller, incorporating her own experience with unrequited love into a cross-disciplinary journey through changing ideas of desire.
Publishers Weekly
Lisa A. Phillips tackles a timely, deeply personal topic....This is a compellingly written, eye-opening guide.
BookPage
The heart, indeed, is a lonely hunter. As Phillips shows, the hunt may be more engrossing, more thrilling, but more disappointing than the catch. Unrequited lovers will learn they are not alone, and they will also acquire useful tips on ways of letting go for good.
Booklist
A sympathetic exploration of the misunderstood phenomenon of women and "the stubbornness of romantic obsession."
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In Unrequited, Lisa A. Phillips argues that loving someone who doesn't love you back is not necessarily a waste of time—rather, it can be a powerful, revealing, and life changing experience. Do you agree? Has the pain of unrequited love ever changed you in surprising ways?
2. Phillips also cautions that unrequited love in its most extreme form can go awry, becoming destructive and invasive—and that society more likely to give women a "gender pass" for this kind of behavior and see it as more of a joke than a problem. Do we view stalking and other forms of relationship aggression differently when women are the perpetrators? Why?
3. Unrequited also looks at self-destructiveness: women who have abandoned their sense of self in the pursuit of an elusive love. Have you witnessed this in others, or experienced it yourself? Why, when love is supposed to be enriching, do people lose themselves to romantic obsession?
4. Teen crushes can be painful experiences, but Phillips argues that, during the emotionally turbulent years of adolescence, crushes are in many ways more beneficial than mutual relationships. In retrospect, do you think your own teen crushes provided any plusses along with all the angst?
5. Phillips reveals a lot about her own experience of unrequited love over the course of the book. How did you connect with her as a narrator? Were there aspects of her story or her approach that rubbed you the wrong way?
6. The case studies she presents are accounts that, in another context, may seem "cringe-worthy" -- stories of women too hung up on people who are "just not that into" them. Which accounts had the greatest impact on you? Did you feel tempted to judge any of the women? Did you identify with anyone? Who seemed most sympathetic? Most empowered? Most dysfunctional?
7. Phillips recounts the stories of women who have been inspired and transformed by unrequited love. Has this ever happened to you? If not, does it seem possible?
8. If tomorrow you began to feel sucked into a passionate attraction to someone you know you could never have a relationship with, how would you deal with it? Would you fight it off or embrace it?
9. At the end of Unrequited, Phillips offers guidance to people who are struggling with a romantic obsession. Did any of her recommendations have an impact on your life, and if so, how?
10. Phillips argues that society should do more to educate young people on the psychological and ethical dimensions of romantic love—a kind of "relationship ed." Do you think this could make a difference in how people cope with unrequited love and romantic rejection? What would a good "relationship ed" program entail?
11. Did Phillips change the way you think about love and relationships? How?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)