Basically, when you finally work up the courage to ask for a date from the love of your life, and they say 'no'...what do you do then?
Do you give up? 'No means no', after all...besides, if they don't even want to go on one date with you now, what are the odds that they'll want to pursue a relationship later on?
But then, there are all those stories about happy couples who didn't even pay attention to each other when they first met, or worse yet, one even hated the other before they fell in love...which means there's still a chance that this person is your soulmate...
And if you decide you want to keep 'chasing', how should you go about it? Continue asking for dates occasionally? Just 'act' like someone who's romantically interested without asking anything? Go back to the way everything was before you asked?
And then, when do you stop? After a couple weeks? A year? Five years?? There's always 'still' a chance...but when do you stop counting on it?
I don't think I'll ever actually use what knowledge I gain from this, but it's a very interesting question to me. So many stories are told from the point of view of someone who pines for another who doesn't * appear * to like them back, or from the point of view of someone getting asked for dates repeatedly from a determined but 1-dimensional friend (or a creep...there are always creeps).
You don't see many from someone who actually takes the initiative to try to start a relationship, gets rejected, and still doesn't feel like they're ready to let it go. It's tricky territory...but I think it can be navigated in a healthy way. Somehow...