tasstears Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 Just having lots of thoughts recently. I think I'm at another low of this roller coaster ride. What are your thoughts about love? You know how they often profess their love, saying things like I'll never let you go and you're the best thing that's ever happened to me. The next thing you know, the whole cycle starts again. Pulling away, being distant or secretive. I'm so disillusioned right now. What's love when every relationship has its end? How do you even love when you're so certain that it's all going to fall apart one day? I don't even know what I'm saying or if anyone catches the gist of what I'm trying to say. There's so much on my mind. So much fear, uncertainty and doubt and so little positive thoughts right now. Trying to stay positive and afloat can get so difficult. Link to post Share on other sites
Clarence_Boddicker Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 Romantic love is a form of temporary insanity & one of the best feelings ever. Link to post Share on other sites
Tone Loc Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 (edited) Often, when you think you love one thing, you are in fact in love with something completely different entirely. For example, I thought I was in love with this girl, but it turns out that I just wanted her body, for sex, and I'd get the same thing from any attractive woman. For others who think they're in love with someone, what they actually love is the attention and companionship, not the person themselves. They'd love attention and companionship from anyone, regardless of who provides it to them. The concept of unconditional, romantic love is a farce. I believe in love for music, love for food, love for travel, love for sport...but being in love (romantically) with another individual? I do not believe in this. You're in love with something SPECIFIC about that person, something that they give you. For me, it was sex. For others, it can be a host of different things - attention, companionship, emotional/mental/social/financial support...people love being around someone who is nice to them, who spends time with them, buys them gifts, makes them feel good about themselves. One must never think that he or she is in love with a person, this is misleading and it will lead you to all the wrong conclusions. People need to realise what it truly is that they love. It's never a person, you can only love the things that another gives you, whether it's a feeling that they give you or something else. For most men, it's sex (as much as they try to deny it). If an attractive woman approaches a man and satisfies him physically on a regular basis, over time he'll mistakenly start to believe that he loves her. Conversely, a woman may mistakenly come to believe that she is in love with a man who showers her with attention and spends lots of quality time with her, just an example. The things which make you feel good about yourself and make you feel happy about your life are the things that you love. Others can and will provide these things to you, but just because they do, it doesn't mean you're in love with that person. In reality, you're in love with the things they give you. If a new person (it could be anyone) were to come into your life and makes you feel happy and fulfilled, over time you'll think you're starting to develop love for them, but you're misdirecting this feeling of love. So to conclude, people don't fall in love with other people, they fall in love with the positive emotions that arise as a result from being in the company of others. They grow attached to and dependent upon these emotions, because these emotions are quite strong and they have a strong positive impact on your life. We're sad after a break up not because we've lost someone, rather we feel sad because we lose the attention and sense of fulfilment/happiness that we felt. We miss the good feelings, never the person, but our false thoughts lead us to the wrong conclusions. "I miss her so much" in reality translates to "I miss the feeling of being in the company of an attractive female (or man)". This is just my view, my outlook. My interpretation of love. Edited May 23, 2015 by Tone Loc Link to post Share on other sites
carhill Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 Love, if for another person, is setting aside the id for a moment and focusing outside of oneself. If those moments become a lifetime, then it can be the love of one's life. If not, it lasted while it lasted until the id took over again and sole and consistent focus on self to the exclusion of others returned. This concept excludes transactional relationships, of which there are plenty, meaning relationships which have the sole purpose of giving to get, like a business transaction. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
endlessabyss Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 The only true love that exists is between a parent and their child. All other love is an illusion. Link to post Share on other sites
Satu Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 Total commitment to the wellbeing of the other. Nothing held back. Nothing conditional. Total extension of the self. Link to post Share on other sites
carhill Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 The only true love that exists is between a parent and their child. All other love is an illusion. That's a good point, in general, as we each define reality according to the sensory inputs our brain receives and processes through electro-chemistry. It's entirely possible our entire reality is merely an illusion in our own mind. Even love for a child could be an illusion based in the electro-chemistry of our brain as it's evolved over millions of years. Since some people demonstrate, perceptibly, a marked lack of love for their own offspring, it underscores the individual nature of the perception of love. Since this thread apparently sprung of a breakup, a situation where the id switches back to self, or 'love' becomes directed to another thing or person, the brain of the one who experienced the prior love has those sensory inputs suddenly removed and the resultant electro-chemical processes disrupted. The disruption is the feeling of loss. Link to post Share on other sites
jen1447 Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 What's love when every relationship has its end? How do you even love when you're so certain that it's all going to fall apart one day? You could say that real love is running the risk of those things happening for someone else's sake. There can be love w/out reciprocity, and not all loves have happy endings. Some might even say that the most intense loves were ultimately one-sided, and I personally like to think the demise of the relationship didn't invalidate the love. Link to post Share on other sites
LooperDooper Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 I'm a young guy but I've been in a few relationships and have had many people come and go in my life. To this day I've only felt "love" once. Yes, I've fallen in love with many people but I have yet to feel the same kind of "love" I felt a long time ago. Love to me is having the courage, the respect, the honesty and the feelings that the person beside you is the person who can give you the confidence and the strength you know you have to be great. I think of love as somebody who can make me realize my own potential and who will embrace it so I can become a better person. To me love is the utmost unselfishness as another person tries to bring out your best by embracing the little things, the little smiles and the little thoughts throughout your day so you can be in a better mindset to complete your goals, your dreams, and to become a better person. Now why do we fall in love with others, because we like their company. I think love has many different ranges and levels, but the utmost love to me is what I've felt once about 5 years ago when I literally felt I could conquer the world with my dreams and I felt I was the best version of myself I could possibly be. Yes, love fades and people come and go, and while I haven't met anybody who has made me feel that way, I've also learnt to bring out my best within my. Because we start with ourselves and loving ourselves to be able to have somebody who can complement that so we become great. Maybe my kind of love is very hard to find, maybe I look for people with qualities hard to find, but I do believe love should be as powerful as anything and I will make that person realize that potential we all have because love to me is beyond words, feelings, and actions... It's about inspiration and the feeling to always become a better person. Link to post Share on other sites
SycamoreCircle Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 Love is...a choice. Link to post Share on other sites
Author tasstears Posted May 24, 2015 Author Share Posted May 24, 2015 So many insights into what everyone thinks love is. Definitely an eyeopener. While I still hope that one day, I'll have a prince charming who'll stay faithful and those happily ever after endings, I'm so close to despair. Happy ever afters don't sound possible. I'm almost resigned to the fact that love is just two people in a contract to tolerate each other and well, love is replaced by responsibility after some time. Thought I was pretty much healed but chanced across photos of the ex from other friend's social media and wow. I've just got to say it feels like stitches were ripped from a nearly healing wound. It's so difficult to hide the pain, laughing and joking about the break up. Break ups just makes me feel like a failure. Failure at not being able to make someone love me, at being so under-equipped to heal and a little disillusioned because truth is, no one wants to hear about how you're still hurting months in. Been posting here a lot and I hope none of you are bored of these repeat stories and the negativity. I've been writing journals to get these feelings out but nothing beats having someone walking through the journey together. Cheers to everyone having a horrible night and having trouble falling asleep. Link to post Share on other sites
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