Oh dear, silly me, now what can of worms did i open? Several comments... That imaginary dialogue is similar to one i had with myself half a dozen years ago when the situation was unrequited love, and in retrospect its a silly sort of revenge. It came up now more in the sense of "look, i meant it when i said i loved you, i said i'd be there whatever happened even if you didn't deserve it, and now you have to live with knowing that one of us meant that." Anyway, it was meant as the ultimate little bit of bitter revenge, but unrequited love in the traditional sense of obsessing over someone who just isn't interested seems, to me right now at least (though not it hasn't always), a rather silly thing to want revenge for.

Secondly i thought of a few reasons why some people might be more prone to unrequited love than others:

a) I, for example, am simply a very obsessive person. Its virtually impossible for me not to be thinking of someone every ten minutes. So as often as not that means i'm in unrequited love. (And in a relationship it means i'm virtually guaranteed to be thinking of the other person more often than they think of me). This is simply a character/personality flaw, but perhaps one that people more prone to unrequited love share.

b) Attractive women and attractive gay men seem, to a large extent (and i'm an outside observer so correct me if i'm wrong), to have the luxury of not having to actively find people they like and pursue them. Waiting for people to show interest in you thus does not mean you're always single, and it doesn't even mean you don't have good choices.

c) Gender stereotypes in society and a lot of girls opinion is that guys should like them and show interest even if the girl is not showing interest back (though they may or may not be interested). I recently had a conversation where a girl was complaining that she wasn't sure if this guy was "really interested" because "He only calls me every other day, and I'm used to guys who are serious calling me every day." For people who are incompetant at this game the end result is unrequited love.

d) You could try blaming it on the music, it isn't clear which comes first.

e) I think that unrequited love is something somewhat tied to being single a lot. There's not really much of a point in a silly obsession if you actually have other good options. If i thought the expectation of someone coming along in the near future who was interested in me and i was interested in her was nontrivial, then I wouldn't waste my time and energy worrying about people who aren't interested.