What do you do if you love someone but they don't love you back? What if someone you love only wants to be friends? Do you stick around only as their friend even if it leaves you in a constant pain? In the Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare several characters are confronted with this question, when you love someone, but they don't love you back is it better for you to have them in your life only as a friend? Or not at all? Saving yourself the pain of constantly confronting the person who could never love you back?
For example Luke has to ask himself this question. He confronted his best friend Jocelyn with his love for her, 20 years ago and she shot him down, assuming he was only doing it out of friendship and courtesy rather then his real feelings. Because of that first encounter she figured he never has loved her, and always shot down his feelings after. But Luke still remained friends with her because it was what she wanted and he still wanted to make her happy. But was this the right thing to do? Luke was left in a constant pain even though he was making the person he loved happy? You would think that by making the person he loved happy it would make him happy too but it only made him feel worse because he was only inflicting more pain on himself.
Also, Simon is going through a similar situation. He has been in love with his best friend Clary, for years, and everyone knew but her. The first time he confronted her she did not return the same feelings. But his feelings didn't change, he still loved her and didn't even try to push her, or make her love him because she was still in his life and that was enough. Even if she didn't or couldn't love him she was still there and to him that was enough. But he always assumed she would later come around and eventually love him, it was what every one else assumed of her. But he was just to hang around till she learned this? To just wait for a girl there was no guarantee would learn to love him? Does this mean he truly loved her or did it mean that he lacked self respect and could stand up for him self and call off the relationship he knew would never really happen?
Lastly Jace and Clary both have to ask themselves this question throughout the series. When they find out that they are related they put an end to their relationship but decide to remain friends and have each other in the others lives even only as friends versus not at all.When they see each other they are the thing that makes the other weaker, but is also the remedy, the problem is the same thing that is the solution. They could have left each other alone from the beginning and saved themselves from a never ending circuit of pain that's only solution will start the problem all over again. They claim to need each other to survive but that's only to survive, to live they need to be alone. Is this deep love or an unhealthy obsession from both sides? Maybe sometimes the best way to love, in a way that will last for eternity is to love yourself and to put yourself first.
All of these characters held out for the people they love and eventually they were rewarded for holding out and staying loyal. But what if they didn't find their happily ever after? What if they all spent there lives waiting for the person that they could never have living in a horrendous, self inflicting, pain? We all want to makes our loved ones, the ones we love most, happy. But when we make them happy but not ourselves when do yeasty and when do you leave? Is it selfless to stay? Or is it selfish to leave?
