What do you consider to be true romantic love?

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Which of these two alternatives do you find describes true romantic love the best? (i.e. with sexual attraction etc., not true love to family members, friends etc.)

(1) Loving someone because you need them. ("I love you because I need you!") (NT "true love")

(2) Needing someone because you love them. ("I need you because I love you!") (Aspie "true love")



I'm asking what you actually feel it is in real life, not what you think you should be feeling it is.

I always think and feel that I need the person cause I love them. And that's a good enough answer for me.

I would not be surprised if everyone voted number 2, because that is (I guess!) the typical autistic way of thinking about true love. But let's see.

Last edited by qawer on 31 Mar 2013, 11:36 am, edited 3 times in total.

2 looks like the correct answer to me.

As I'm currently in a long-distance relationship with another member on the site. If I were simply going for personal gain I would have avoided the difficulties of one, and gone for a less complicated local one.

Since long-distance relationships inherently provide less benefits than short-distance, the only possible explanation is the second one.

Why does there have to be an element of need to love someone? I've always thought of the entire "I can't live without this person" to be either an exaggeration, or seriously problematic.

Some people might stop "truly loving" another person if that person could no longer give them what they need.

You can't truly love someone if you need them, because love will always be confused with the fear of loosing them.

It's a common theme in abusive relationships.

Three people have, so far, selected option one, so according to your way of seeing things these three would have to be NT's. You can't make generalisations like this, saying that 'Aspies' view 'true love' in a certain, and easily recognisable, way, and that 'NT's' are the same. People generally do not behave in a manner that conforms to some stereotype that someone else has decided to burden them with, based upon a label that ultimately means little, if anything (like 'Aspies', 'neurotypicals'). It's nonsense, we need to try to curb such simplistic formulations.

Actually, the OP did say "I guess" and "typical", so I don't think he was saying anyone who picked no. 1 would "have to" be NT. There's nothing wrong with suggesting a possible pattern, IMO, and that's all he did. Plus the point of the poll was probably to see if that hypothesis was correct (as he also said "let's see").

Then it wasn't love in the first place, if there was just a mad grab for fulfillment. I didn't vote because I find both answers invalid.

+1 for MjrMajorMajor

I do not think neediness is a positive attribute. Love has more to do with being understanding, respectful, knowing what a person needs. Not that its bad to enjoy someone else's company.

Recently saw Gone With the Wind, and I wouldn't call what Scarlet O'Hara feels towards Ashley love, at the end of the movie she realizes she never really loved or understood him. Not that a soppy, southern romance is the best example.

To me (an NT) true romantic love is WANTING someone not NEEDING someone. I don't need a man, I want one but I don't need one. I want someone to want me in that same way. Wanting means you have a choice and you want or have chosen a specific person. To need someone can be borderline obsessive. And that is something I neither need nor want.

I have never felt romantic love so I cannot say for sure, but I voted #2. Love doesn't exist in a vacuum. If I become attached to someone, that attachment has some reason to it other than love. Now, if that attachment leads to love, and if that love leads to closer attachment, and creates a sort of feedback loop, that initial trigger was still a need fulfilled.

I did not intend to put so much emphasis on needing vs. wanting.

The poll is more about what comes first: does the need/want come first, or the love. Do you love a person because you need/want them, or do you need/want them because you love them.

It's a matter of what comes first: need/want or love.

I should preferably have pointed this out, but I did not think of the word "need" as problematic. You can freely substitute it with "want" in the poll.

In my ears "wanting" someone does sound like you want them because you feel a need for them in your life.

As opposed to what? Not wanting them? You have a very peculiar notion of romantic love if it doesn't include wanting.

Exactly