Men and women; How do we experience love and is it different?

[AnyaNova]

I'm just curious if there is a difference in how we experience romantic love. If you could give us your gender (or if you are trans or experience your sense of gender identity as different from your sexual physiology, please tell us what you yourself experience yourself as--and thank you to the friend of mine who truly made me aware of what it is like to live with that!) and some concrete examples of how you experience love, it would be cool. Like an informal research survey or something. :-)

 

Forgive me if it takes me longer to respond and therw are lots of autocorrect typos, my laptop can't boot the OS right now, so I'm having to run by phone.

[littleplanet]

I'm just curious if there is a difference in how we experience romantic love. If you could give us your gender (or if you are trans or experience your sense of gender identity as different from your sexual physiology, please tell us what you yourself experience yourself as--and thank you to the friend of mine who truly made me aware of what it is like to live with that!) and some concrete examples of how you experience love, it would be cool. Like an informal research survey or something. :-)

 

Forgive me if it takes me longer to respond and therw are lots of autocorrect typos, my laptop can't boot the OS right now, so I'm having to run by phone.

 

 

 

 

Running by phone.................

(that's hell to a typist!)

 

I'm sure there are a million conventions by which love is measured, and pop culture offers up most of these liberally, every day.

Waltzing it through gender-specific definitions can be like a stroll through a landmind field......but also offers up endless fascinations to compare.

 

Personally, I'm at a stage in my life now where romantic love is something that, curiously...........has completely redefined the word, "affection."

This would have been a very lame word to me, in my twenties.

Much further on now - it is a word that encompasses endless layers of meaning.

Often enough, it is something that seeks proof in those millions of little things that are done, not to prove love. (When love has become secure, confidant, and perennial as the grass...)

Not to prove it, but to express it.

The things that are hardly thought of consciously at all - until after they're done.

Of course, this is a byproduct of familiarity.

Not the kind that breeds contempt.

But the kind that grows ever fonder.

The kind that invents its very own personal language.

(actually, a whole vocabulary of multiple languages, really.)

 

And when it comes to gender - yes, I'd say this is something that very much defines my gender.

One of my favorite quotes: "A woman must shine, in a man's eyes."

As a man, what does this mean, to me?

 

...........that the vision reads like poetry. Sounds like symphony. Tastes like haute cuisine.

Brash, perhaps. But that is romance.

 

When I was a young man in college, I worked my way through it driving a cab. One night, I had the pleasure to drive a couple to their 50th wedding anniversary. They were dressed to the nines. Like Rogers and Astaire.

Cooing and cuddling in the backseat like teenagers.

Very much in love. It was obvious.

 

When I drove up to the front door of the snazzy digs where the big party was taking place, and as the gentleman was counting out the fare, I asked them both.......what was their secret?

The gentleman spoke first: "After all these years, she's still a mystery. It'll take me another hundred years to figure it out!"

 

Then he got out, holding the door open for his wife. Just before she floated out of my car, she turned to me with a marvelous twinkle in her eye and said, "After all these years, he can still make me laugh."

 

I like to think I borrowed a page or two, from their book.

(It's a very good book!)