Unrequited (Phillips) - Discussion Questions

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.)

top of page (summary)