Who Do You Love? What Is Love?

Post Reply New Topic

A friend once explained his view of love to me.

You can care about colleagues and aquaintances - and loving someone is caring about them with no strings attached. Not expecting anything in return. No matter how much time passes, if they screw up or disappoint you, you'll forgive them cause you love them and carry on caring about them.

I love one person in the world, and she's my wife. I love her because she is pretty and smart and funny, and she is like me in some ways, while in others she is totally unlike me. I love her because she understands me, about as well as an NT person could, and better than any NT person has. She likes many of the things I like. I love her because she gave me a new lease on life. She rescued me from poverty and isolation and liked me enough and trusted in me so much that she encouraged me to leave my birth country to come here and be her husband, and make a new life from scratch. She makes everything all right for me. She is my best friend. She is not hard to please. She is not hard to get along with. She doesn't want anything from me that I am unable to give. She could have married anybody, someone local who didn't have to go through the immigration process and spend a year unemployed waiting for the work permit to arrive. But she chose me, because she thinks I am worth it. That's what makes all the difference.

It was infatuation and romantic love during our courtship and the first few years of our marriage. We've been married almost twelve years. Now our love has calmed down and it's a deeper attachment. It is comfortable. We like each other as people and friends and roommates and companions. We don't get on each others' nerves. I give her space, she gives me space. Our home is the nicest place we go all day. There are no bad memories here. We have never had a fight. There have been no raised voices or slammed doors or tempers flared. I believe that we have a better marriage than anyone we have ever known.

Having had this experience, I can honestly say that I never loved anyone before, and I never felt that anyone loved me until she came into my life. It has made such a difference for me that I don't do anything to jeopardize my situation. If something happened and she couldn't be in my life anymore, I would be devastated. Because I know that finding her was the best kind of cosmic accident, and I can't see it ever happening again with someone else. My life has been so great since I found her that if I hadn't come here and found out how wonderful she is, and had never pursued her, I would be kicking my ass for the rest of my life. Sometimes, you have to project through your fear and do what seems impossible, just to find out if you were right. And when you find out that you were right, well, there's nothing to compare with that feeling.

I don't think there is a way to measure love. I would say that you've achieved it when you don't have to wonder if the other person loves you. It helps when they tell you often that they do really love you. But when you have a level of certainty and trust that feels so right that you don't need to question it, you're there.

I read about so many of you on this site who are so profoundly lonely and either want so badly for this to happen to you, or are so discouraged by the fact that it hasn't happened to you that you've all but given up (or really have given up), that it makes me very sad. I can tell you this much: it didn't happen to me until I was 37 years old. Before that, I was despondent about never having had a relationship. I wondered if there was something wrong with me. I saw other people doing it, and doing it really badly, too. Why couldn't I do it? So I know the kind of discouragement some of you feel. I had a very long time to live with it. And I can totally see how you can develop negative ideas about what love is like if you've never had any. I have some stuff I wrote about my feelings about it when I was much younger, and it makes me cringe to see it now. I read some of your comments, and I say, "yeah, I was there once." So I'm here to tell you that it can happen.

You need to be worthy of another person investing their life in yours. I think that's the most important thing. You have to have the fortitude to do the right thing all of the time, and do what you said you were going to do, and not cop out. That's the hardest thing a person can do, and when you can do it, someone will notice if you want them to. You can't be childish and immature and play the blame game. You have to stand up for yourself and do what you know is right. It is true that you have to love yourself and believe in yourself before anyone else can do it. Be who you are, underneath all the layers of guilt and fear and bad experiences. Be someone worthy. That's the best you can do.

Wow, RettOracle that was beautiful. Thank you. I am not in a relationship and never have been. Love confuses me. I am fascinated by deep love songs and songs about emotion like the songs written by Colin Verncrombie or The Bathers or The Blue Nile. Maybe because love confuses me and I like to find something I can relate to in these songs to make myself feel human, maybe even give me hope.

I love my sister more than anyone. I know that because it is a special kind of happy. She is getting married and her fiance fits in perfectly with us. It's that happy feeling like when we were kids and we were playing.

I love a friend of mine. I thought that I was romantically in love with him, but I don't know anymore. He was in love with someone else, so nothing happened. But we have kept in touch and our relationship transcends anything I have ever known. He is the safest place I can ever be. He understands all of my madness and he says that I understand him. I can tell him anything without reproof. When we are in each other's presence there is warmth and happiness. We have also been through alot of pain together, but that has only drawn us closer. I don't know how I will ever find anything like this again. But I have reached a point where I am happy that he is in love with this other woman and I am pleased that she makes him so happy. I know that he needs her in his life.

I have another friend that I love. She isn't very good at getting close to people and our relationship has taken alot of hard work to build. But we know each other very well now. When I see her, her face lights up. Her husband took a video of us playing on a roundabout in the park and my face lights up the same way when I am around her. She is someone that I always want in my life.

I feel guilty though, that I don't feel this for my parents. They know that I don't and I think it upsets them. But mostly I don't feel much for people.

Sexual love is an alien concept to me. Many animals mate for the porpose of continuing the species. There is no aspect of love to it at all if animals mated the same way as most animals, it would be considered rape. I'm not homosexual or hertosexual. I am asexual. The very thought of intercourse is digusting. He's supposed to put his what in my where? Not only do I dislike the idea of intercourse, I dislike any forms of affection such as hugging or kissing. I have no trouble knowing I love my dog, cat and lizard but I often wonder if I truely do love my parents and siblings or if I just love what they do for me. I pretend to love my neices and nepphews for the sake of not upsetting my parents or siblings but in reality I couldn't care less if they vanished into oblivion. I only know loving my pets and my special intrests (which are almost always animal related).

Have you observed female animals in heat? Your comment does not correspond at all with my observations. Female farm animals and pets AGGRESSIVELY SEEK OUT a male(s) when they are in heat, and the female in heat arouses the male which only then "pursues" the female. Female animals play an active role and there is no "coercion" involved on the part of the male animal.

Thanks everyone, for your comments. They're all very great and have been helpful to me in trying to understand my own concept of love.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, love is:

I never understood why so many people have trouble knowing what love is... Or do they just say that in romance films?

Off topic: I love that early photograph of Virginia Woolf that you use as an avatar now. She must have turned quite a few men's (and women's) heads in her day.

Perhaps because it's always being put to the test. Held ransom or accountable to other people's definitions and standards. Instead of being left alone to be what it is and do what it does on its own terms.

I have my close circle of friends. It's only three people.
I feel like they are my family and I do love them. I trust them, they trust me and I can talk about anything with them. They accept me despite my differences, that I'm awkward, that I may not always be talkative, that sometimes I don't know what I'm doing. For that acceptance, comfort and trust, I'll do anything for them. For that I love them. It's a warm feeling of gentle happiness. It doesn't come quickly, but developed over time.

Oh yeah, I tottaly forgot about those cats that would scream all night and keep you up. Even through a closed window you could hear them. Still, I don't think most animals mate for pleasure.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpwK3vFGJp0[/youtube]

lol

*****

i think that this song says it well...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1x-JOp9t_U[/youtube]

Last edited by tektek on 25 Jan 2010, 9:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

took long enough
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsCXZczTQXo

I couldn't resist.

Love across the ages topic

Right now I have a strong feeling for a long dead historical figure, a deep admiration for a man who has been dead for 162 years.

In some ways it is safer to feel this way. Yes, this is a sort of interest/obession. I get these happening now and then.

By the way, CC, I love your avatar of Virginia Woolf

For me, I think having children helped me understand better what love was. I know I want to do whatever I can to make them happy and healthy, I know when they are not near me I wish they were, and I know that everyday when I wake up the thing I want the most is to be with them. I think because of my problems connecting with people in general, that feeling love for someone else would be really hard. I often wonder if besides my children I am capable of love at all, only time will tell I guess.