How do you know if you're in love?

[Sivok]

I heard it all the time. How do I know if I love a person? "You just know". But for those of you who feel it, what's that feeling like? She said it, I said it, but I dont know why... It feels off. She told me she feels she loves me more than I love her, maybe that is true. Maybe I'm just confused about how I'm supposed to feel and the concept of that 4 letter word itself

[aerogurl87]

My ex told me he loved me after knowing me for a week, and I told him he was crazy. I said it a week later cause he wouldn't shut up, but at the time didn't feel it. Fast forward 3 months later after months of enduring what most relationships don't go through in one year, I felt it. I felt he was "it", he was the one. I loved him for his faults, for his accomplishments, for his failures, for everything. I couldn't explain it in words, but it was there, I was in love.

[adamt]

in some cased you dont realise you are in love with them until they have gone

[gypsy_nicky]

in some cased you dont realise you are in love with them until they have gone

 

is there actually any truth to this or just hearsay??

 

Any LSers ever experience knowing your in love when the person is gone?

[Kevinds]

hey aerogurl87,

how long until he intiated the first kiss with you? did the change anything or support anything

[aerogurl87]

Kevinds we were in a LDR and had met online so nope no physical contact whatsoever for about 3 months. But the moment I saw him I realized I loved him and I was a goner after that. Our relationship was unique, not always in a good way, but we understood each other. There was some unsaid bond between us that could never be broken for some reason, and although we no longer talk to each other, I can honestly say I believe that a thread of that bond is still there. But our first kiss wasn't something extraordinary. I didn't feel fireworks or whatever, go off. But when he held me I felt safe, secure, and like I finally had found where I belonged. It was odd, but as much as I hated him, I always loved him and he always loved me. We knew each other's darkest secrets, each other's greatest faults, and yet we still loved each other. And although we broke up, I am happy I got to have him in my life because not many people ever get to experience the type of love we had (or what I thought we had) it's rare nowadays. But it can be the greatest (and sometimes worst) feeling you can ever imagine to ever feel in your life for another human being.

[MalachiX]

I've only really been in love once so I don't know if it always works the way it did then.

 

I'm a pretty gaurded person and I get freaked out pretty fast if a girl starts acting really attached. The thing which always scares me is when a girl looks deeply into your eyes, bats her eye-lashes, and even gets a little teary-eyed. It's the "LOVE" look and it used to scare the beejesus out of me. I knew I was in love when a girl gave me that look and, instead of being frightened, I felt really good. Ironically, it still took another few months for me to say "I love you." I had wanted to say it from that moment but the words just kept getting caught in my throat. As silly as it sounds, it was like that scene in the 1989 Batman when Michael Keaton can't say "I'm Batman." I used to think that scene was so stupid as a kid (I didn't understand how you could be unable to say something) but now I love that scene since that's exactly how I was when saying "I love you."

[TheBigQuestion]

In my particular case, the feeling of being in love involved not really being able to get the person off my mind. Admiration for her good traits, (relative) dismissal of any bad traits, and feeling charmed by her quirks and peculiarities. It involved me feeling more alive, happy, energetic, and despite my thoughts being consumed by the girl, more focused in all aspects of life than usual simply because I believed I had found a person that just clicked with me in all the right ways. All these feelings occur in a state of infatuation as well. However, I think that the line between infatuation and being in love is crossed when you really feel intimately connected to the person to the point where you're finishing each others sentences. Where everything that they do, good or bad, deeply resonates with you for no real logical reason. If how you feel about someone is in this ballpark, it's safe to say you know you're in love.

 

This is really not the same thing as loving someone, however, at least in my opinion. That requires dedication, time, patience, etc. I loved my ex-girlfriend of 3 years, but I was not ever really in love with her in any traditional sense. I made her my girlfriend because I honestly had no one else interested in me and it evolved into a deep love after over half a year. I was absolutely, madly head-over-heels in love with a girl around this time last year, but I certainly didn't love her, as I didn't get to know her THAT well since time did not allow for it.

[Sivok]

I think the issue with my situation are the factors involved. We have a long distance relationship, she currently doesn't have a job. Seeing each other is expensive. She also has a daughter which makes her moving down here difficult (she sees the child on weekends), but at the same time my entire life, my job, my family is here and I'd never abandon my family for a girl. It seems like it's a battling storm between the logical and the emotional. The emotion between us longs for us to be together, yet the logic of the situation dissuades the entire concept of the relationship.

 

Regarding certain aspects mentioned above. The person who mentioned knowing you're in love with someone is most apparent when you no longer have them is true. In my past relationship my girlfriend's negative traits FAR outweighed her positives ones. She talked **** behind my back, flirted non stop, made very few compromises in the relationship, and finally cheating on me was the last straw; she wasn't even that attractive to add to it. Yet after the breakup I'd look back and see nothing but good, that's when I truly did realize I was in love - albeit the feeling was toxic and part of an extremely unhealthy relationship.

 

Right now I feel that the 'logical' aspects of the relationship are outweighing the emotional in my mind. I do find some traits of hers distasteful (talking way too much about exes, her worrying that she loves me more than I love her, and talking way too much about the future; all signs of extreme insecurity basically). I also feel that maybe the toxicity of my last relationship and how painful the whole journey of the latter half and getting over her was may be repressing my ability to feel the same level of emotion...

Edited March 24, 2010 by Sivok