I think it is easily possible for someone to be in love with someone for their whole life, and not have it reciprocated, especially if you can remain somehow close as a "friend". I have had a number of confidants who have told me of their long stifled love for someone they are forced to remain friends with, in some cases because the other in the relationship is their best girlfriend. There are all kinds of barriers, not just those. I once was a good friend of a woman who was deeply in love with a man who was "a friend" (not me), and the reason why she never said anything? -- she was plain verging on ugly, and he was very handsome, and had many very beautiful women around him, one of whom he married and lives quite happily with. She knew she was out of his league, but it didn't matter, she loved him, she knew he had no interest in her. She said to me, once, bitterly, don't tell me about the shining of the inner soul crap.

I have known other people who had a relationship for awhile that went bad, and they have decided to remain friends, and one of them is quite happy about it, and the other is not, and hangs around, being a good friend.

There are terribly romantic, tragic stories going on all around us, all the time, not just in Harlequin romances. Unrequited longing is widespread. It is one of the reasons why, if you sit in the subways late at night, people look the way they do.   

yours,

Peter T.