A work in progress
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Warning: the following will kill the “magic” of love for you. Like the magician’s livelihood, it is the mystery that keeps it alive. Whether you want to leave it alone is up to you; but sometimes, that magician is a jerk and makes your wallet disappear. If you’d like to make sure that doesn’t happen, read on.
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The one thing about love that makes it so difficult for us all, is the complete lack of any real rules or guidelines. We are left to make our own understanding of this vague feeling. What we’re here to do today, is to define what love is exactly. It’s very important to know at least this much; as G.I. Joe once said, “Knowing is half the battle!” Here’s what they didn’t teach you in school, kids.
Love is simple.
Essentially, love is caring deeply for someone.
That’s it. You already knew that much, didn't you? Most everything written here, you’ll already know to some extent. The trick here is pruning the unnecessary (and often downright wrong) romantic notions that convolute the matter.
First, les us address the belief that there are many different "kinds of love". This is nonsense; love is love. There are merely different levels of relationships, with varying, arbitrarily established degrees of intimacy and time spent together. It's very important to understand this difference.
Speaking of which, our society’s system of relationships is somewhat broken. For some reason, we tend to reserve all our love and intimacy for a special relationship we have with but one other, which we hope will eventually become marriage. There is much wrong with this system. Granted, marriage in itself is a great thing, and it is generally ideal to live with another that one loves; but why should we only give our love to just one person? When we limit ourselves like this, we leave our other relationships lacking. It should not be weird to cuddle with a friend, or tell them that you love them. It is precisely because we do not properly love our friends, that we are so eager to find our life-long mate, as that is the only relationship in which we allow ourselves to truly love.
There is a lovely lie that one might like to live, the one true love; but the whole concept is just a romantic dream. Being romantic is fine and all, but you must make sure that the romance complements your life, and does not limit it. “The one”, for example, is a hindrance to oneself because it implies that love is something that is found. Some go so far as to imagine that love will find them.
If you are to take nothing else from this message, as least understand this much:
Love is not something to be found. It is a bond that you make.
If you believe in love at first sight, then you are an unfortunate fool. That is not love. Rather, it is infatuation.
Infatuation is the “magic” of love (and by “magic”, we mean “mystery”; the two are the same). It is that inexplicable feeling which strongly draws one to another, usually for little reason. This is simultaneously the catalyst and bane of love.
Infatuation is terribly irrational. It doesn’t take much to trigger it, and what does usually isn’t based on any real values. More often than not, the trigger is usually a good first impression that leaves much to the imagination. The blanks are then filled in by your imagination, and tend to lean towards the ideal. Anyways, whatever happened, if you become infatuated, say goodbye to your brain. You won’t be seeing it for a while.
Doubly dangerous is if the other person is equally attracted on the same basis. Then you might be inclined to believe that there’s something substantial to this magical (i.e. mysterious) feeling.
What’s so dangerous about infatuation in the first place, is that it is temporary. It will eventually fade, no matter what. Unfortunately, many relationships are brought to such a close and intimate level with mere infatuation as the foundation. When they fall apart, this is what is commonly (and erroneously) referred to as “falling out of love”.
Sometimes, a doomed relationship that should never have been continues, usually falling in and out often, even though it should have ended a long time ago. What (barely) holds these together, is the comfort stemmed from the sense of familiarity with the other person. Familiarity is a powerful thing. It’s what makes you like that song on the third listen, even though you didn’t like it the first two times. Unfortunately, we tend to restrict ourselves to the bounds of what we are most comfortable with, that which is already familiar to us.
Anyways, what this all has to do with love, is that infatuation is all too often mistaken for love. The two are very different things altogether. It is possible, however, that love can grow through infatuation. Something’s bound to become of all that time spent together, no? Make no mistake, though. It is a foolish gamble to take a relationship to such a level without some objective thinking and time spent getting to know each other, first. However, the folly of infatuation makes this very difficult.
People are always much nicer to people they like. If they're infatuated with you, it makes it a million times harder to judge what a person is truly like, even with objective thinking. At that point, it's better to watch how they treat other people. That's usually a better window to their heart.
Don’t expect anyone to be “perfect”. Nobody knows what “perfect” is. There is likely no such thing. Instead you should be looking for compatibility with yourself. This is different for each person. One universal trait one should look for, though, is “heart”. This may sound corny, but it only seems so because it is an often repeated truth of life. Most everyone values “heart” to some extent, whether they are conscious of it or not, so one might as well actively seek it.
This really makes sense. I'd like to hear more about this, and I'd like to know what you mean by this "heart" thing, even though it sounds like some stupid made up thing.
>>3
Heh, yeah, it's a pretty corny word. By "heart", I mean the general disposition of a person (way too long to refer to it that way). To have a good "heart" would mean that one is kind, thoughtful, etc. If you can think of a better word, I'd love to hear it, haha.
I'll add to this when I can think of more to write, which might not happen for a while. It's funny, I used to dream of writing a book about love, so more people could understand it; but as I came to understand love myself (through much unlearning, mostly), I found that there's not much more to write than a few pages on it. So I'll just write this and try to spread the word.
Live to love.
Same with >>3, I would definitely like to hear more discussion about this. And on the "heart" thing, I think it's fine. I sometimes use that word to express the same thing so it feels natural to me.
I'd like to ask your opinion though, if someone who is madly infatuated creates these deep levels of fabricated truth because of the blanks filled by the imagination, how do you save someone you "love" because of that?
I like what you think about love.
I actually have come to very similar conclusions through those nights in bed just thinking about it. It has sort of liberated me from the superficialities of contemporary relationships entangled in superficial, ill-fated bonds. I sometimes even doubt where the "real" love is out there. But then again, I'm a bit blind to many things. I might even be missing the point entirely.
>>5
Sorry, but I don't quite understand your question. If you could rephrase it or give some more context, that'd be great.
>>6
I'd say "true" or "real" love is when you completely know someone, with no delusions, and yet you love them anyways. That tends to be more difficult than one might think, haha.
By the way, you guys want me to write more, but I can't think of anything else to add right now. I'd appreciate it if you all could offer some suggestions on what to write next.
To be honest, I'm surprised that there hasn't yet been any flame wars or anything. Thanks for being open minded, everyone! You guys make me so happy. =D
>>7
Oh, you mean "unconditional love"?
My thought on that is that that's only possible for a mother/father to feel towards their children since that sort of "love" is different than the more 'intimate' "love". It's practically impossible to "love" somebody without some sort of condition/s.
Maybe you could write about how relationships are supposed to work or something.
>>8
Woah woah, let's not jump to such conclusions. Loving unconditionally is totally something else. Mostly because it's, you know, unconditional. That implies that you'd love 'em no matter what they do, which is not quite what I was talking about.
It seems I did not make myself clear enough. Don't worry, misunderstandings happen all the time here, and are of no fault to anyone or anything but the limitations of the medium of writing.
Again, there are no different kinds of love. There is only the variance of the arbitrary bounds that we ourselves decide for our relationships. The typical factors in our decision are threefold: Circumstance, experience, and culture.
Let's take parenthood for example. Parents must love their children unconditionally to at least some extent, because of the circumstances; they brought this child into the world, so it's their responsibility to raise her into adulthood, and to give her the loves she'll need in growing up to become a respectable individual. Also, you might be surprised how hard it is to not love your child after going through the experiences of childbirth, and raising her for two decades. And while parents love being intimate with their children (with some few million hugs and kisses), they almost certainly won't sleep with them. This is essentially because of two things: lack of sexual attraction (fair enough), and/or cultural upbringing. We have some rather heavy taboos about incest.
Speaking of which, what exactly is wrong with incest, anyways? I used to consider it weird myself, until I actually started questioning why. Honestly, besides defective births (which can easily be prevented nowadays), there's hardly any reason for it to be taboo, other than the fact that we've always been told that it's bad; this we confirm only by the example of some terrible acts of terrible people, which isn't so much a case against incest, so much as it is against those individuals. Assuming reasonable age of consent and such, if it's between people with loving intentions, can we really consider it perverse just because they happen to be related? People should be allowed to sleep with whoever they want, so long as they are human, consenting, and (most importantly) loving.
I won't blame you guys if you don't agree; it is kinda hard to seriously consider at first. But do think about it. It's important to always question the way things are. After all, we used to think gay love as perverse, and only recently, after much protest, are we finally seeing that we were the ones who were wrong all this time (and those of you who want to argue about that, don't. This is a place for love. Take your contempt and intolerance elsewhere).
Technology is progressing at insane rates, and yet society's still in the dark ages with concepts as simple as love, all because we insist in holding on to old-fashioned notions without questioning why. This is exactly why I'm so damn unromantic.
you make some interesting points. I disagree about incest mainly because it would make brother sister relationships difficult if people starting accepting it. I mean one of the reasons they work is because there isn't any confusion with sex and infatation going on in the background. Also you generally spend a lot of time growing up with that person its easy to love them. That's half of love is knowing and understanding them how else would you care for someone. There is more to this but I find it hard to articulate.
I also found your concept of heart interesting I thought of it like how you would think of a soul and how our souls make us different from animals. Like this heart quality is what makes us human. You need to have a personality, identity and morals. You need to seek knowledge and understanding. I know it sounds religious but I really don't mean it in that sense. Its like in order to connect with another human you need human qualities.
>>10
I'm curious; how exactly would increased intimacy make familial relationships more difficult? I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say, but I suppose you mean it would complicate matters in our current society, in which these things are still quite taboo. In that case, yes, you do have a point. However, in a more accepting and open-minded society (hopefully sometime in the future), these things would cause no such complications. Of course, if we're going to get that far, we need to start somewhere, no?
Then again, people kinda suck at not having babies. Even my own conception was an accident. Perhaps allowing incest isn't the greatest idea after all, haha.
Again, I'm not sure what you're saying in your second paragraph, either. It seems you're using "soul" as a vague umbrella term for most of the mental processes we humans have that animals don't. So...to connect with other humans, we need to be human? Okay then. Sorry if I missed your point, your English is a bit hard to understand.
Speaking of humanity, though; that is one of the few definitive places where we should draw the line, as far as being moral in our sexuality. The only requirements should be that they are: human, consenting, and of a reasonable age. Love isn't completely necessary, but hopefully it's present as well. Otherwise, it'd be something more like mutual masturbation. But that's just me talking with a huge love bias, really.
As far as what a reasonable age is, [(half your age)+7] is a pretty good rule of thumb, I guess.
And to reiterate what I've already said before yet again, because very few seem to get it, there are NOT different kinds of love. That's merely rationalization for the arbitrariness of how we establish our relationships (we humans are an ever-rationalizing people). Please understand at least this much. You'll save yourself a lot of heart-ache.
Hmm, it's interesting that you continuously reiterate that one must be human as well as consenting; so you're saying if an animal were, hypothetically, consenting it would still be wrong to have sex with it? And is this because of the associated taboo that society places on bestiality, or your own personal bias?
I understand it's wrong to have sex with an animal under normal circumstances, because they cannot truly give consent, but I find it funny that love must be specifically human. It provides restrictions not really necessary, doesn't it? Same thing with age; a limitation I don't see as necessary as long as there's consent.
If it's a conscious choice between two people to be together and "love" each other, and if they understand the implications, then shouldn't it be okay? Therefore, the only restriction to love should be consent, right?
Just my 10 cents.
>>12
Heh, interesting. I didn't expect such a response on this board.
Restricting to only fellow humans is just for the sake of simplification, because there's not really any other creatures on or above our level of intelligence, capable of truly consenting and such. If we were to come across another intelligent species somehow, then obviously we'd have to consider them as well. Perhaps I should be more specific in the first place.
As far as age of consent; well, that's an actually tricky issue, for obvious reasons. It's quite hard to know where to draw the line. Clearly, setting it at 18 is overcompensating; but how low can we go until the child is simply too vulnerable to manipulation and such? I still haven't come up with proper conclusion about that one. If you could elaborate on your take on this, I'd appreciate it.
Indeed, age is definitely dangerous waters to tread. As you said, one who's mind is too young to discern what they truly want is also, perhaps, too young for love. This, in my opinion, raises the question of whether love is simply a chemical reaction that we've got no control over, or a conscious choice that we can only make when we understand what "love" is. Yet, as you and I know, most people have this glorified vision of love, thinking it's on par with the Hollywood definition; so when they they are in love, are they actually? Or is it just an illusion created by their mind, formulated using the guidelines laid by the media?
It's interesting, love; just like most everything else, society has changed and convoluted its meaning to what profits the media, to what appeases the masses with its romantic idiosyncrasies; it has complicated the emotion to the point of plasticity. It makes me wonder if love has already become extinct, or has become something else entirely. Perhaps the love we know is largely different from the love hundreds of years ago; perhaps love is an ever-changing emotion that we have conjured to explain and sanctify sex and marriage and commitment.
Perhaps I think too much.
We humans are all social creatures to some extent. We need people. Love is merely the corollary, a sign of good relations with others. It is actually the people themselves that are truly important. You'd do well to remember that.
Love is not an emotion. As I've said before, "love is caring deeply for someone". To be exact, it is an extremely positive disposition towards another. At most, it's a cause for emotion. Also, one could argue that everything you do and feel is a chemical reaction; saying such things doesn't mean much. As far is if we have control over our love, yes, we do. Infatuation, not so much, unfortunately.
Love isn't any different than it has always been. Really, most of the change we think we see in life, is merely the change of our own beliefs.
You know, I think probably could write a book on love after all. However, everything but the first sentence would be about what love isn't, haha.
So what exactly do you propose we do about the age of consent, then? You kind of dodged the issue with your lovely little tangent there =P
I suppose the most important thing to realize about love is that it is actually a lot simpler than what people often make it out to be: it's about caring deeply for a person, and realizing that their happiness is essential to your own.
Now, for the age issue. It's actually an interesting conundrum; can a young boy truly love somebody, even a parent? Does the boy have the emotional capacity to care deeply for someone, to be affected by another's happiness so greatly that he could not bear to see them unhappy? I have a hard time believing he could. Therefore, perhaps the age of consent should be based on emotional maturity. Now, I'm not a psychiatrist or a statistician, so I do not have the data needed to determine the average age that one is emotionally mature enough to capacitate the emotions that come with love, nor do I really know how to determine specifically when one is ready to love.
Hell, I'm not even sure that what I said is true; maybe a little kid, say between ages 4-8, can love his parent. It'd be circumstantial though; the person would probably have to be with the kid from birth and become recognized as an essential part of their life before love can form, and who knows how long this takes in the undeveloped mind of an eight-year old.
One needs not many years to learn to love. For example, even young children definitely love their parents. If mommy or daddy doesn't come home, they notice; and that can have some seriously negative effects on them.
Again, though, love isn't necessary for sex to be moral, and shouldn't be. The point of an age of consent in the first place is to protect the young from those who would take advantage of them. Let's not convolute the issue here.
How about, if you're age 12-16, sexual relations are allowed between people in that same age range. Once you reach the age of 16, you have the freedom to choose whom you have sex with, as long as they are in that range or above. Once you reach the age of 18, the previous age range is no longer of consent (sans 16).
Eh, I don't see how that's any more useful or less arbitrary than the [(half age)+7] rule.
Whatever. Tweaking this issue is not really anywhere as important as fixing the other ones.
By the way, I know I've made infatuation sound like a bad thing and all; but really, it's not. With the right expectations, it can actually be a good deal of fun. So long as you both understand love as defined here (i.e. not necessarily partnering for life), you should go enjoy each other while you're in that state of mind. Kiss, cuddle, fuck, whatever.
Me, i'm still inlove with someone i met in the net, but never got to met him in person, I keep rejecting others because I still believe one day that it can be the two of us... It's either single or him...
copy pasta:
for most people its a simple chemical reaction. one that eventually dies out, which is why divorce is so prevalent.
people that manage to stay together even after this chemical reaction has died out either hate each other and are together for cultural/social obligations, or they develop a different level of love that is very different from fleeting, ordinary, romantic love.
love is too imprecise a word to accurately define universally though. too many different emotions get lumped under 'love'. although they may seem similar, the love you feel for your significant other isnt the same emotion you feel towards your mother, your dog, your favorite instrument, your precious collectors item, or whatever it is that someone can claim to 'love'. by the same token, hate can be closer to love than most people realize. it is part of the reason why abusive couples are able to stay together for long periods of time.
since you are most likely asking about romantic love, its most important to remember theres no such thing as eternal romantic love. its entirely chemical, and doomed to dissipate. people get caught up in myths and other such stories about famous lovers, and they forget humans dont live forever. is it possible for two people to love each other romantically their entire lifetime? yes, if they live very short lives. couples who continue to love each other towards the limits of human age do not experience the same love they had when they were young. their body chemistry changes. no form of love is a static state, and the longer romantic love lasts, the more likely it is to change into a sort of familial love, which is entirely different. you could debate the terms, but in summary, love between two people at age 20 is not at all the same at 120, plain and simple fact.
contrary to what the previous poster has written, infatuation itself is the classical idea of romantic love. in fact its probably romantic love in its purest form. love that endures after infatuation is no longer pure romantic love.
the notion that you cant 'fall out of love' is nonsense and is the assertion of one who has had little romantic experience, or a long string of repeated failed ones.
ultimately, you will have to experience different forms of love for yourself to understand what the different emotions mean to you. try not to give too much weight to semantics, and dont be naive.
>>21
Please don't. That's not healthy, and there's no real reason to. Also, long distance relationships suck when you have no one else. The lack of intimacy becomes more of a problem than you think it would. By the way, I highly recommend reading this thread that you're posting in. It's good stuff.
>>22
Haha, I remember that thread; I was embarrassingly unlearned back then. Anyways, that fellow's post is just wrong, unfortunately, for reasons I've mostly already covered, and am too lazy to cover again. However, if a good argument can be made for "different kinds of love", I'd like to hear it. I don't care about being right, so much as finding the truth.
A good rule of thumb: If a concept is terribly complicated, but impossible to adequately define, it's likely to simply be wrong in the first place. A proper conclusion cannot be made, because our initial components are merely fabricated (This is also why the ending of Lost kinda sucked; they were mostly just making crap up the whole way). These things are almost always far simpler than we think. Be wary of the convoluted.
Hence, why I have to spend most of my time here telling what love isn't.
The CnP post is the only good post I've ever read on this board attempting to define love. In fact, disagreeing with it pretty much proves the point of it. Trying to narrowly define something that is understood differently across cultures and individuals is pointless. Not to mention English is one of the worst languages to attempt to define it in. There are no less than 3 words in Japanese that would all get translated to 'love' in English, and none of them mean the exact same thing.
Also the first post in this thread is ridiculous. It reads like the first romantic epiphany of a teenaged girl. I realize this is an anonymous internet board, but come on. Some of us here are over 30 and I can only roll my eyes so far.
i dont see that this thread provides anything worthwhile to this board. fwiw, im the original writer of >>22.
>>24 i dont see being older as necessarily being indicative of more wisdom or even experience on the subject, but i will halfway agree with your assessment of this thread. the first post is incredibly naive, but im going to give the poster credit beyond a teenage girl because it seems to attempt the application of occum's razor to the concept of love. which is a poor way to use it, but the way i see it the poster came right out of philosophy 101 and started writing this post.
also, good observation with english being a poor language to define love within. this thread wants to umbrella love, well the english language conveniently does it for you. the topic is only worth discussing when you want to go beyond generalizations.
and let's be real folks. you wont be giving or receiving any major revelations about the concept of love on 4-ch. you want to share your personal observations? fantastic! but dont tell us you figured it out and everyone else is wrong when we all know better.
>>24
Ah, we're really going there, huh? Alright, maybe you'll bring up some good points. I'd love to hear a good argument from another point of view.
Any concept can be defined. I refuse to simply let "magic" fill in the holes. A lack of a proper definition merely shows a lack of understanding. That being said, an apparently good conclusion isn't necessarily correct; I could very well be wrong myself. If that is so, feel free to point out any holes of my own that I've yet to notice.
Now, a variance in beliefs does not necessarily evidence that the subject matter itself holds to any of those variations, or even exists, for that matter. Also, you deride English for not having enough words to describe "different kinds of love", without actually making any effort of proving the existence of these different "kinds".
So tell me, first of all, how is love something more than an extremely positive disposition towards another?
>>25
Heh, I missed your post writing my last one. Looking back, you seem to say often that this love is different than that, and such; but you never really go into the particular details. I find it difficult to hold such statements with much weight.
If you could explain your view of these things in further detail, I'd appreciate it.
>>27 honestly i find the premise of this thread to be juvenile. nothing personal and theres nothing particularly wrong with that per se, we're all juvenile at one time or another. but this is trite. theres a thread like this on any board anywhere discussing romance. theres countless threads about it in the archives right here. nothing said here is worth repeating anywhere.
heres one way to look at it. youre talking about simplifying something that's been almost universally considered one of the most complex human emotions since man started writing literature. greater minds than you or i have struggled to define love in languages that are more precise about it than english is.
the assertion that you can umbrella all love under a single term is as much nonsense as the need to do so in the first place. truthfully, i feel that doesnt even merit explanation.
To me, this thread reads something like, "hey guys I figured out calculus, its just a bunch of algebra". Might not be entirely wrong but its stupid and you sure as hell shouldn't get cocky about it.
So are we actually going to get some real discussion done here or not? So far you've done nothing to prove your point of view. Rather, you are merely attacking the person, and not the argument itself. Ugh, this kind of closed-mindedness makes me wonder why I even bother sometimes.
Do you not see that our current system of loving is completely broken? Love that actually happens is by accident almost every time; And even when it does happen, there's a good chance it'll fall apart anyways! This isn't right. I'm tired of seeing people hurt because of these silly romantic notions.
Just as religion has impeded science, romance hinders love. At the very least, can we not take a moment to question our beliefs? I know it sounds absurd, but perhaps the Earth really is round.
>>So are we actually going to get some real discussion done here or not? So far you've done nothing to prove your point of view. Rather, you are merely attacking the person, and not the argument itself.
Like I said. Reads like a teenaged girl. Just the way you phrase things precludes any worthwhile discussion. You are trying to shift the burden of proof because your position is so weak. Finally don't even come to a debate if you don't know the phrase ad hominem, which isn't even going on here. I see attacks being made on the content of the thread itself, no one knows or cares who you are.
An argument cannot stand by arrogance alone. Either you actually start making some real points, or I will simply have to ignore you. I've been more than reasonable. So far, your attacks on my argument have been terribly vague. If you want me to prove things any further, you're going to have to actually point to specific holes in what I've said already.
And to the statement that I'm attempting to "umbrella" love: If you had actually paid attention to what I've written, you'd know that I am actually pruning off most of these "kinds of love", and segregating the rest. I am in no way unifying any of it. Clearly, I've been mostly speaking of what love isn't, non?
>>An argument cannot stand by arrogance alone.
LOL IRONY
You guys are being trolled. No one is this dumb.
Sigh, I came to the internet; I should have expected the internet.
On the basis of how you're defining such a universal and complex topic to a dot, and constructing all your arguments from this skewed, individualised viewpoint- it does sound a bit ignorant and inexperienced. Kudos to finding your own definition of love, but don't think it can be applied to everyone.
To generalise love with your own definition and then dictate how one should love (assuming that such a thing can even be controlled), is no different to telling everyone what the meaning of life is, and how they should live.
I hate to draw the age card, but add a few more years and experience to your life and you might see why this thread may seem pointless to some posters here.
Bah, age just makes us more hardened and lose our ability to be dynamic. Given time, we just become more certain in what we believe, because we tend to only perceive what confirms the things we already believe. Everyone does this, myself included.
Honestly, the main reason I've posted this here, is to test it against what everyone else believes. Unfortunately, nobody is giving a proper argument, so this is quickly becoming quite pointless. To me, at this point, it's like trying to talk about evolution to an hardened, old-fashioned christian who refuses to doubt what he already believes for even a moment, despite the dinosaur fossils laying about everywhere.
Again, I'd appreciate it if someone could open-mindedly argue how our old system of love isn't broken, and is in fact better. If the argument is good enough, I'm willing to change what I believe. I just want to find the truth.
>>it's like trying to talk about evolution to an hardened, old-fashioned christian
Terrible analogy. Not even remotely parallel to this thread.
>>argue how our old system of love isn't broken
I don't even know what you're trying to talk about. There is no system. There never was. You wouldn't even be posting here if there was a such a thing. You are arguing semantics which is completely and utterly POINTLESS.
Sure there is! Most of us tend to go about love with a certain method. There's a couple of variations, but they're based on similar principles. See if you can recognize them.
A girl starts to really like a boy. They're already friends, but that's not "enough"; she wants there to be more to the relationship. One day, she confesses her love to him, and to her surprise, he says that he loves her too. They become boyfriend and girlfriend.
Others like to be a little more straight to the point, and date the people they're interested in, or even just date people interested in dating. They find someone they really like, and they'll become partners, too. That is, if the other person likes them as much.
So what's the problem with finding a girlfriend to love? A lot of things, unfortunately. First of all, this is a relationship that we only have with one other person. Generally, this will be the only person that one let themselves be truly intimate with, for the entirety of the relationship. Being someone's boyfriend usually indicates that they'll be that someone's husband eventually. It's true, we expect to be together with our partner forever, no? If, at any point, either person decides that they aren't compatible enough to be together forever, they must break up and stop loving each other, usually too heartbroken from the event to even be good friends again. Heck, often they hate each other afterwords. And since the pool of people to choose from to be your life-partner is so small already (since you both have to be interested, and single, to be partners at the same time), chances are that you'll will end up with someone that's not quite as compatible with you as they should be, for someone that you're going to be spending that much time with.
Granted, this system isn't universal; but it's certainly what a good majority of the people go by. The main problem with this, is that we're essentially marrying someone, simply because we love them so much that we want more in the relationship.
What I suggest, is that we let ourselves be that lovey and intimate with those we love, without the huge jump in the relationship. Then we have no hearts broken because of unreasonable expectations.
Why exactly is this so wrong?
In a very round about way, it very much sounds like this "system" that you're on about is monogamy. And you're arguing for polygamy/open relationships. Yes or no?
I don't understand why the label is so important, but you could call it that, I guess. Kinda missing the point, though. Why do you want such a binary answer? You make it sound as though the reasons and message are irrelevant once this label is applied. Is it not possible to form an opinion without merely pigeonholing it?
Little side note, I still think it's ideal to marry only one other. It'd be extremely difficult to hold together a marriage with more than two people involved (two's hard enough as is, haha). But yeah, if it's for the sake of love, I don't see anything wrong with being intimate with more people than just "the one"; or at the very least, being able to love others just as much.
Anyways, I'm merely offering one solution. It's the best I can think of, and it seems perfectly fine (and far less broken). If you can think of a better solution, I'd love to hear it.
> Why do you want such a binary answer?
I was merely trying to see things from your point of view. Hence I needed to know if I'm on your train of thought or not- which for the record is in need of serious clarification. Pigeon-holing? Let me remind you that you are the one who has been classifying and breaking down the concept of love into a supposed system.
> Kinda missing the point, though.
Perhaps if you actually constructed a logical and less long-winded argument, we wouldn't be confused as to what you're actually arguing about. If you wanna say "I just wanna mate like a bunny with whomever I choose, without having to think about the consequences", then say it. The fact that you're deluding yourself into thinking that you've stumbled upon some ground breaking notion that deserves pages of verbosity, shows that you are just having teenage thoughts of grandeur.
Haha, I didn't say that my point of view is entirely unique. That's kind of impossible in this day and age.
Anyways, you unfortunately did miss the whole point, which was, you know, love. Intimacy in itself is entirely unimportant. As an extension of love, however, it is vital.
The point of this article is not to force my solution on people, though. Rather, it is to teach important things, such as understanding the difference between love and infatuation, what the inherent flaw is with how we go about loving, and what we might be able to do to fix things. Any convolution would be due to having to repeat myself to get the message across.
Now, here's the real kicker. We need to stop caring so much about love in the first place. Our society puts so much emphasis on finding that "significant other". As a result, we tend to think of others as potential mates, constantly analyzing to see if they fit that hole. If we deem them unfit for the spot, or we ourselves are rejected, then we will not, cannot, love them; we often go so far as to feel as though we wasted our time investing in them. On the other hand, there are relationships that exist solely to fill that space of "significant other". Needless to say, that's just wrong.
We need to stop thinking so much in terms of relationships, looking for people to fill certain places. Remember, love is about appreciating other people for who they are. It is the people that are truly important, not the bond itself. Let us never forget that.
Man, it's starting to feel like the whole world's against me here. Now I know how Wright feels, haha. If you listeners at home are still with me, now would be a good time to call in.
Oh, and Meri Kurisumasu, everyone!
>>Rather, it is to teach important things, such as understanding the difference between love and infatuation
sheer arrogance. your posts in this thread are all astoundingly so actually. you arent teaching anyone anything. what you are doing is irritating people with your naivety.
and i hate to quote myself but i think this bears repeating:
>>you want to share your personal observations? fantastic! but dont tell us you figured it out and everyone else is wrong when we all know better.
its not even about what you said and whether its nonsense or not. its this holier than thou attitude. the notion that you have it 'figured out' when your average adult can recognize it as the ramblings of a very young or very naive individual.
'Holier than thou' isn't that what you're doing? The 'I'm older card', as I've come to see, is a holier than thou kind of thing because you are saying that you are more experienced and therefore your opinion matters more (sometimes it does too). Rather than establish credibility through labels use logic (not saying you haven't either). If he won't listen to good reason without some kind of weight being thrown around, then you're wasting time anyway. I'm not trying to attack you or anything, nor am I saying he's not being arrogant. I just think people shouldn't use age and IQ scores to give weight to their opinions. >45
>>46 There are good posts slamming the OP throughout the thread. There's really no need for detractors to establish any more credibility. Playing the age card can't be avoided with the content of the OP's posts.
This is how love is defined psychologically speaking. Take a look. It's basically describing the components of love and how love can take many different forms. Every type of love can be explained with this model. from love of a family member to love of a car, to your gf, to your baby etc...
I don't see why love has to be treated like it's science. It's this...this attempt to classify everything that has made us null to exploring our feelings and understanding what we, you, and I want out of life, love, relationship, marriage, whatever. We expect high, we get low, we run away, and we learn to appreciate what we had. That's love.
science is how men make sense of the world. it does seem unhumanistic to define love using a triangle of words, but when you think about in this format, it does explain love quite well.
Analyzing something to understand it better doesn't make it any less meaningful. Personally, I believe connecting with others is the greatest pleasure in life. It's important that we properly understand these things. Otherwise, we hurt not only ourselves, but others as well, with misled beliefs such as that fate will bring you together with "the one", or that you have to stop loving someone when you break up because you can only love one person, or that gay love is wrong. If we actually look at what love truly is, we find that there's no real reason for any of this. They're usually just arbitrary rules based on whatever we feel that love should be. Sometimes we have to detach ourselves from our feelings for a moment to find the truth.
Critical thinking makes the world a little less magical, sure; but the amount of pain and heartache it prevents is most certainly worth it.
Some people choose to love everyone and simultaneously choose to be with only one partner. Some people choose to love one person and simultaneously choose to be with multiple partners. Love can't be denied if it's love. Relationships is entirely different from love. Emotions are emotions as well. Personally, I don't care whether or not "society" has influenced me in any way. I choose to love as many people as I can while simultaneously reserving my most intimate self for one individual; the one who I have the strongest emotions for and the one who I have the strongest attraction to. It's just more comfortable to live my life that way.