Has anyone actually experienced love?

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Do you mean experienced love as a feeling inside one's self, or experienced love as caring behavior from another human being? I have experienced both.

What do you mean, you thought you experienced it once but it turned out not to be? Do you mean you thought someone loved you but they turned out to be lying? Or you think you didn't really love someone because your feelings changed?

Feelings do change; that doesn't mean they weren't genuine at the time. Why do you think you didn't really experience love, if you thought so at the time?

Honest to Pete: I loved my doggie.

well this chick i thought i was in love with kinda was a good girlfriend for the first three months but when i started getting sad because of my pills that i was on for to long she kinda broke up with me, well i didnt take it well at all, i actually took it very badly, well eventually after nagging her heaps to take me back she did that isnt why i hate her. we stated to go out again and it was love again but then she started cheating on me. me being an aspie didnt take that well and still couldnt let go. well we continually broke up either because of her cheating on me or an argument for about 10 months about 30 time or so and eventually i gave up. she didnt like that at all and thought i would give in as ushall but i didnt. so then i decided i was never in love with her because i feel to be in love with a person you have to trust the person you are dating and i could never trust her not even before she started her mean stuff.

Well, that happens, too; as you "grow" your perception of what love means changes. I happen to agree with you, I think love without trust is more like *desire to possess*. It's fear and loss-based rather than altruistic. I believe real love is strongly altruistic, though not to the point of self-punishment or self-destruction.

I think you're right about this case.

Nope, and I'm not holding out much hope of falling into it.


I'm not convinced it even exists. I'm planning to find me a girl I can get along well with and think is interesting, that should be fine.

Yes

Never, assuming we're talking about romantic love. I did have a crush once, but I don't think that counts.

I think I am currently experiencing love, though I'm unsure as to what the actual definition of would be.

The best and most accurate definition of love I have ever read is:

"Love is that condition in which another's happiness and wellbeing is necessary for your own."

I love my husband and children, my pets, my brother and mom, my close friends, even myself. I think self-love is the hardest for me. I didn't know I was an Aspie, kept getting told I wasn't trying hard enough, lots of rejection, etc., which I internalized. It didn't help that my mother's second husband was a pedophile and sexually abused me. It turns out that disabled children are at a higher risk of sexual abuse, especially if they have trouble communicating.

NAO: I have been and still am in romantic love...not just sexual attraction, I would be happy simply being near her.

Yes a year ago but the problem was love turned to hurt.

I've loved before.

I Love Kaylee

I think that's a little narrow. The problem is that love, being a term for a feeling, is inherently always going to be kind of nebulous. You can reach for a description which sort of comes close, but you'll always fall a little short. And worse than that, because our feelings are to a degree unique to each individual, just because you experience love in a certain way, doesn't mean it's true for another. I'd agree that your definition is good for *most* occurrances of love, but probably not all.

Anyway, to answer the original question, yes, I've experienced love. I'm married - I wouldn't have married her if I didn't love her. And I've loved other people, and creatures, and those experiences cover a fair breadth of feeling. I'd say I love my dog (sometimes, when she's not trying to pull me into oncoming traffic or the nearest pitbull - and, in case my wife is reading this, that's an attempt at dramatic overemphasis), and I care for her wellbeing deeply, but at the same time, she's just a dog, and in the end expendible if there's no other option. I'd hate for there to be no other option, I'd be a little upset, but still. That probably rules it out of the above definition, but I'd still call it love.
My first girlfriend, I had a very physical relationship with. I'd say I loved her. I was enormously upset when she broke up with me, distraught, and unable to get over it for over a year, and I spiralled into depression after she broke up with me. And there, the relationship was based on little more than our physical lust for each other, but still it was all consuming. In the end, I'd probably also say it was pretty destructive. It was definitely love, but it's very, very different to the love which I have with my wife, which is more to do with our intellectual and philosophical compatibility (although obviously there's still physical attraction there). They're all pretty different, love's hard to put into a box (that's the problem with noncorporeal ideas - you try to pick them up, they slip through your hands, and then they're all over the floor. I'd suggest a mop, but even that doesn't work well).

Just because your feelings changed into hatred doesn't mean it's not love. Love's usually pretty intense, if for some reason the feeling is frustrated, it can warp into something equally intense on the other end of the spectrum, that's just the nature of the beast.

Nope, I've never loved in the romantic sense. I've had infatuations and obsessions, sure. But I've never loved someone enough to want to spend lots of time with them for a significant portion of my life.

It takes up too much time. There are so many interesting things to be doing other than getting on each other's nerves.