Do you believe in love?
- Thread starter Jacco
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Love is device invented by bank managers to make us spend all our money.
I'm in the "don't knock it 'til you've tried it" type, personally. What irks me is people who have only been going out for a short time claiming to love each other. "Love at first sight" is definitely just a powerful infatuation. Once you know someone deeply and intimately, then I'll take that love seriously.
This is well put, and in all seriousness, I do believe in it.Whateveralot said:
To be fair, guys using expressions of "love" as a way into someone's pants doesn't disprove it. It's something you would want deeply, and so it's only natural that some lesser people would use the idea of it as bait.aprilmarie said:
I'm in the "don't knock it 'til you've tried it" type, personally. What irks me is people who have only been going out for a short time claiming to love each other. "Love at first sight" is definitely just a powerful infatuation. Once you know someone deeply and intimately, then I'll take that love seriously.
Love is an idea that you have about a person. If ever that idea proves incorrect, that is when you see people divorce and start hating their partners. Many people mistake infatuation for love and once the novelty dies they have nothing left.
I think love is a more gradual occasion than most people assume. Love at first sight just doesn't work. You have to grow as a person with someone and see their flaws and forgive them of those flaws. If you can't do that, then you should probably find someone else.
I think love is a more gradual occasion than most people assume. Love at first sight just doesn't work. You have to grow as a person with someone and see their flaws and forgive them of those flaws. If you can't do that, then you should probably find someone else.
Oh it exists alright. It's just rare. Very rare. Most relationships are NOT founded on real love for each other, and of course, love is not permanent. Love exists, but it is not an all-conquering, all-powerful human emotion - it's just one of our emotions and probably not even the most powerful (I honestly think blind rage is more powerful than love as a motivator.)
Hollywood style love probably doesn't exist. A lot of the "love" that you find in songs is shallow. I can't adequately explain what love is.... and there are different types of love as well. There's the love one can have for their family members (I love my siblings and my parents very much). There's romantic love for your spouse, and then there's the love you can have for close friends. All exist, but it is important to realize that 1) it's rare 2) It's never certain and 3) It's impossible to tell 100% if someone loves you as much as you love them.
Hollywood style love probably doesn't exist. A lot of the "love" that you find in songs is shallow. I can't adequately explain what love is.... and there are different types of love as well. There's the love one can have for their family members (I love my siblings and my parents very much). There's romantic love for your spouse, and then there's the love you can have for close friends. All exist, but it is important to realize that 1) it's rare 2) It's never certain and 3) It's impossible to tell 100% if someone loves you as much as you love them.
Love exists in the form of Chemicals Reactions and in the form of CHER!!!!!Da Orky Man said:
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I believe love exists. I caution lovers to always remember that it is temporary. Do not buy into the 'illusion of forever'...because when it is over...the loss of that love can break something inside of you. Those wounds take years (if ever) to heal. I want to believe (as Shakespeare said) that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. But in my darker moments I feel like the pleasures of love are not worth the pain when it is over.
"'Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all"Whateveralot said:
Sappy I know, but appropriate yes
It is something one must cherish and constantly fight for. Like happiness it is something that must be defended.sheah1 said:
So yeah. Love at first sight is nothing more than mere infatuation.
As much as it contradicts my usual cynicism I do believe that love exists in some form.
I cede that it is an evolutionary development to promote sex and attachment for the sake of the future generation, etc. But I don't understand why that means we can't enjoy it and have a rich relationship with another person for whom you have sincere affection.
I cede that it is an evolutionary development to promote sex and attachment for the sake of the future generation, etc. But I don't understand why that means we can't enjoy it and have a rich relationship with another person for whom you have sincere affection.
People screw up. They make mistakes. Sometimes they fall out of love. Sometimes they lie about being in love in the first place. Sometimes they mistook something else they felt for love. Or maybe they were too young yet to know what it really was.
Yes, there are people married for fifty years who clearly at some point no longer loved each other, if they ever did. But your topic, dear OP, was not marriage. It was love. Marriage is an altogether different bag of tricks.
Love exists, as surely as my little boy exists. It may sound cliche, but if you ever have children, you will understand that love is real. And yes, there are many people, married or not, who still love each other after fifty years, to the point where they cannot last long when the other one dies.
I have been married for going on 12 years. I still love my wife. There are days when I am more loving, and days when I am less loving. But I still love her. It took a long time to learn the value of love and why it is worth working at. But it is.
My father did not love my mother much. Or me, I think. But my stepfather did. He has been around for thirty-five years now, and clearly still loves my mother. I didn't love him at all for a long time. But the truest test of the fact that love is real, is that over many years I went from deeply resenting my stepdad, to telling him I love him. And I do.
Yes, there are people married for fifty years who clearly at some point no longer loved each other, if they ever did. But your topic, dear OP, was not marriage. It was love. Marriage is an altogether different bag of tricks.
Love exists, as surely as my little boy exists. It may sound cliche, but if you ever have children, you will understand that love is real. And yes, there are many people, married or not, who still love each other after fifty years, to the point where they cannot last long when the other one dies.
I have been married for going on 12 years. I still love my wife. There are days when I am more loving, and days when I am less loving. But I still love her. It took a long time to learn the value of love and why it is worth working at. But it is.
My father did not love my mother much. Or me, I think. But my stepfather did. He has been around for thirty-five years now, and clearly still loves my mother. I didn't love him at all for a long time. But the truest test of the fact that love is real, is that over many years I went from deeply resenting my stepdad, to telling him I love him. And I do.
And if I may conjecture a further objection, love is nothing to do with destined perfection
The connection is strengthened, the affection simply grows over time
Like a flower
Or a mushroom
Or a guinea pig
Or a vine
Or a sponge
Or bigotry
... or a banana
And love is made more powerful by the ongoing drama of shared experience
And the synergy of a kind of symbiotic empathy or... something
The connection is strengthened, the affection simply grows over time
Like a flower
Or a mushroom
Or a guinea pig
Or a vine
Or a sponge
Or bigotry
... or a banana
And love is made more powerful by the ongoing drama of shared experience
And the synergy of a kind of symbiotic empathy or... something
Then how do you explain people who fall in love sometime after they first met the person, once they start to know them on a personal level? There is a difference between attraction and love.Yopaz said:
Very well put.SageSteven said:
Not unless he's been trolling in every form the exact same way. I'm pretty sure this is actually how he feels.KaosuHamoni said:
Love is a choice. Love is choosing to accept your partner as they are, flaws and all. Love is what is left, when the chemical infatuation of attraction has died away after two or three months. If you believe in friendship you must believe in love because love is friendship, partnership and affection rolled into one.
To the OP, love undoubtedly exists. It may well be the result of the brain rationalizing its own behavior and desire, but that makes it no less a thing. Like poster number 3, I too have seen people physically die of heartbreak. If you have never been in love, you won't understand this, but I will say it anyway. Once you have been in love and been loved in return you truly know happiness, acceptance and respect; until then you can only think you know what they are.
To the OP, love undoubtedly exists. It may well be the result of the brain rationalizing its own behavior and desire, but that makes it no less a thing. Like poster number 3, I too have seen people physically die of heartbreak. If you have never been in love, you won't understand this, but I will say it anyway. Once you have been in love and been loved in return you truly know happiness, acceptance and respect; until then you can only think you know what they are.
I believe it is a strong biological reaction that is generated in order to perpetuate the species.
Then again, there's the whole "friendship" stuff. I consider love just strong friendship + sexual attraction. And that wouldn't be explained as a mere biological reaction to perpetuate the species, since it's arbitrary and it be generated by either males or females, regardless of your sex.
So, my final answer would be, dunno. I am still to experience true "love" too, so that adds to the whole thing.
Then again, there's the whole "friendship" stuff. I consider love just strong friendship + sexual attraction. And that wouldn't be explained as a mere biological reaction to perpetuate the species, since it's arbitrary and it be generated by either males or females, regardless of your sex.
So, my final answer would be, dunno. I am still to experience true "love" too, so that adds to the whole thing.
Now, where's that clip...ah! Here it is:
Believe me, I'm very much a pessimist and a cynical individual, but I do believe in love. I think too many people here are equating the question with finding a 'true love' as it were, though I believe in that as well. Love is not something you can control, it has no logic to guide it, it simply is. A feeling that stems from within that will either blossom into something beautiful or wither into ashes, but that just comes with the territory. Of whether I'll find anyone to love me I'm highly doubtful, but I certainly do think that it exists.
Believe me, I'm very much a pessimist and a cynical individual, but I do believe in love. I think too many people here are equating the question with finding a 'true love' as it were, though I believe in that as well. Love is not something you can control, it has no logic to guide it, it simply is. A feeling that stems from within that will either blossom into something beautiful or wither into ashes, but that just comes with the territory. Of whether I'll find anyone to love me I'm highly doubtful, but I certainly do think that it exists.
That's the worst kind of generalization.Jacco said:
OT: I completely and truly believe in love and the power of love. I'm sorry to hear you're jaded or cynical, I know I was at one point too. Saying "you'll just know" what love is when it happens is the kind of statement that aggravated me...until it actually happened. I am completely and utterly infatuated with the person I'm in love with, and that's all that matters to me. I can only hope you have the same luck as I have had.