LOVE CAN'T BE FORCED

Love, I believe, is something we all seek.
Some of us search for it in money, believing a lot that will bring us a lot of love. Some of us search for it in sex, thinking if we give that away enough, sooner of later someone who receives it will love us. Some of us search for it in education, thinking if we were only smart enough, someone surely will love us. Some of us search for it in beauty, thinking that if we are just perfectly beautiful, then someone will love us.
Others become so disenchanted that they abandon the search completely for an antidote of alcohol and drugs to numb the unending ache. Others become so afraid of the risks that love demands that they cower in a shell of their own making, too fearful to even stick their heads out to see if the sun of love might shine on them.
And yet others, so unsure of what love is, grab the first thing resembling love and marry it, only to realize all too late that what they have is not love at all, but just a big mistake.
Much as we want and much as we try, one thing we simply cannot do is make someone love us or make ourselves love someone. It would be akin to making the sun rise at midnight or turn the ocean into a parched desert. We cannot change that which is out of our control, and those whom we love and whom love us is not within our power. It is beyond us and yet part of us. It is within us and within others and yet more than the sum of any two people in love.
We may love someone who, for reasons we cannot understand, either cannot or will not love us back. Or maybe they are too afraid to risk everything for love, preferring the safety of that shell. Oh, we can prod them and poke at them and even try to entice them to leave the safety of that shell. That may work, briefly, until their fears overwhelm them or they sense that pain and hurt are just around the corner.
But wouldn't it be so much better if they chose, of their own free will and when they were ready, to come out of that same shell and greet you, lovingly, the way you want it to be? Is not far better for them to realize love is something they want too and that they are now ready to take the risk? And if they cannot shake their fears, cannot find the courage to leave the safety of their shell -- a shell of their own making -- is it not better to continue to love and wait and hope, rather than to prod, poke and pester? Would you rather this person, in time, to remember you as someone who never stopped loving them or to always think of you as the person who simply would not leave them be? Would you rather be hated in the long term or loved forever?
You decide.
But you cannot make them love you, not until they and their heart are ready. So either be patient and hope they eventually will see you for who you are or be a pest and then they truly will hate you for what they think you are.