Love Hurts, Alternative Style.

I'm a terrible, hopelessly romantic woman. My favorite movie is Titanic, for gosh's sakes. Ever since I was a young teenager, I craved to have a romantic relationship with a guy. At a tender age, I developed painful crushes on celebrities. My first crush was on Micky Dolenz of The Monkees. I wrote endless love letters and poetry to him, praying for the day we would meet and profess our undying love for each other.

I guess I have to admit I didn't have a happy upbringing. My parents divorced when I was six, my dad was out of the picture, and my stepfather was very cold and abusive. I always had a deep, haunted longing for male attention and affection, and a feeling like there was a hole in my heart.

In high school, I met a handsome goth guy who dressed like Edward Scissorhands. He was my first love. It was a brief, unrequited love, but I continued to love him for decades.

But I have never been lucky in love. Maybe it's because I love so deeply and with so much of myself... But I've always been a severe introvert, and later on in life, I struggled with mental illness, namely depression. It's hard to find someone who will love you when you deal with mental illness on a daily basis. Also, I experienced weight gain due to anti-depressant medication.

But even though Valentine's Day is a holiday which makes me cringe inside, I haven't given up hope on finding what I've always wanted most in life--that special someone. Even though I'm 47 now, I believe I still have time. And even though I've grown to detest Valentine's Day.

So to commemorate the true anguish of Valentine's Day for someone like me, this playlist is comprised of songs I like to include on every single one of my "love" lists. My musical tastes tend to stray to the "alternative" genre... Some tunes are more well-known than others, but I can promise you they are all just as haunting, and vividly evoke the feelings of the way I love: with a burning, all-consuming passion and ache.

1. Radiohead, "Creep"

This heart-wrenching, indelible landmark and surprising debut single of Radiohead is always one of the first tunes I put on my playlists. Thom Yorke's ethereal, tear-invoking voice set against the brutal, visceral guitar strumming of Jonny Greenwood is heartbreaking in itself, but the lyrics of this ultimate ballad of unrequited love are what really get you:

When you were here before

Couldn't look you in the eye

You're just like an angel

Your skin makes me cry

(If by the middle of this song the hair isn't rising on the back of your neck from sheer emotion, I would think there has to be something wrong with you.)

2. The Cure, "Pictures of You"

It was a common joke in my high school (though probably tasteless) that, when The Cure's Disintegration was released in 1989, it should have included a complimentary razor blade.

Imagine holding the pictures of a loved one in front of your eyes for so long that you start hallucinating them in reality. Robert Smith's soulful, pristine voice evokes the heartache of unrequited love and regret almost too acutely, and the lyrics are too painful to contemplate:

If only I'd thought of the right words

I could have held on to your heart

If only I'd thought of the right words

I wouldn't be breaking apart

All my pictures of you

(I don't know how many hours I spent of my teenage years listening to this song while crying and driving and reminiscing on my first love. The cassette was truly worn out.)

3. Bel Canto, "The Suffering"

Though Bel Canto is a highly underrated Norwegian band of the more ambient sound, I have often thought that lead singer Anneli Drecker has the true voice of an angel. This too-poignant song with its eerie, Eastern-reminiscent melody drips with melancholy and heartbreak, and the seemingly endless pain and desolation of losing one's love:

So what am I gonna do

I gave away everything to you

I suffer from painful blows

Will it last forever

The powerful, synthesized chords seem to be drumming away eternally on one's heart and invoking the feelings of the never-ending despair and bewilderment of a love who definitely got away.

4. This Mortal Coil, "Song to the Siren"

Touted by some as "the most beautiful song ever," this alternative masterpiece of the 4AD record label and voiced by the incomparable soprano Elizabeth Fraser is a gut-wrenching, pleading love ballad of epic proportions:

I'm as puzzled as the newborn child

I'm as riddled as the tide

Should I stand amid the breakers

Or should I lie with Death, my bride?

I have been in rooms where people have collectively wept to this song, and it's totally understandable.

5. Evanescence, "My Immortal"

Amy Lee's heartbreaking vocals are underscored by the hypnotic, delicate piano strains of this ineffably beautiful song. It painstakingly and perfectly chronicles the gut-wrenching loss of a loved one or significant other:

When you cried, I'd wipe away all of your tears

When you'd scream, I'd fight away all of your fears

And I held your hand through all of these years

But you still have all of me

This song is a double whammy for me, for it not only evokes the pain of romantic heartbreak, but it reminds me of my mom, who passed away four years ago due to heart failure, and whom I was extremely close to.

And there's my playlist for the broken-hearted, alternative music-loving individual. Though I have duly suffered in the name of love, I'm never giving up on my life-long dream of finding that person to love who will love me back...

I promise, I'll never let go, Jack. I'll never let go...

If you really enjoyed my story, please heart it, and if you deeply enjoyed my story, a tip would be most welcome--I will be utilizing all proceeds towards my weight loss goals, and I am in the process of procuring gastric bypass surgery for myself. And to all those hopeless romantics out there, don't ever let go!!! :)