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But to fall "in love" with someone who cruelly rejects you is painful.

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I hear you but don't actually know for sure if I've experienced this. To fall in love with someone who cruelly rejects you - to me this is a blessing in disguise. Getting rejected has opened me up to new things in the past - at the time I didn't realize it. We are taught that rejection is supposed to hurt. What if it didn't? I sometimes find it is a bit cold - but look at salespeople. They are rejected time and again and keep things positive. That's not love but it's trying to get something they want (the sale). Now, what is love? It's allowing yourself to feel good in the presense of someone else. Seems like "making the sale" to me. What is hard is maintaining quality love, not falling in love. If you don't feed a loving relationship, it atrophies into tough times... So, Love is like opening a restaurant. You have to keep on cooking, keep on ordering new food to prepare, make yourself (the restaurant) clean and shiny to attract the customers in to eat your good food and come back time and time again. Imagine opening a restaurant and never cleaning, forgetting to order the eggs, not weiring a good waitress costume, not greeting your customers with a smiling face, smoking while cooking, farting while taking orders, cursing, complaining... How many customers want to eat at your restaurant? Love - gotta clean the restaurant daily to keep it going.

The alternative is dark. Not allowing love into your life means that the only person you can fall in love with and share your life with - is you. It's hard to change this but what I've tried to do is to search for the cause of the pain and understand that it's not me they are rejecting - it is actually they are looking for that love in their life that they really need to be with. I am not that person. I am me. What I open myself up to is the ability to allow many into my life and love openly but let them go to where they are destined in their lives. I cannot let them define me.

Love everyone, some will love you back. Love no one and you'll have a hard time even loving yourself.