Generally I have always been one of the great romantics but that has all changed. I suppose two failed marriages accounts for my dispirit for “Love”… if Cupid exists he has an awful sense of humour. Now, here is where I stand on the issue – Love in itself does not exist. Love is a combination of different emotions and feelings, such as respect, admiration, devotion, adoration, lust… … … We ‘love’ our children, a good book, pizza or our dog. We love our Lover. We make love. We fall into love. We fall out of love. We are in love. We are loving. Isn’t she lovely? Is it a person, place or mineral?
When you utter the words ‘I love you’ those words are said from your definition – a very unique and personal collection of emotion describing words. When I hear you say you love me I attach my own individual definition to it. Are we in fact passing on the same sentiment?
My stance right now is that “Love” in itself does not exist – you cannot have love on its own without one or several of those emotion describing words attached… I would much rather tell a man that I respect him, or admire him, that I adore him or am infatuated with him – than to tell him I love him. Atleast there will be no confusion as to what my intentions are.
I haven’t even broached the subject of serotonin and oxytocin in the brain… the addictive quality of love… but I recommend Dr. Fisher’s TED video – it is a very worthwhile 16minute.
It makes me sad that I can’t believe that love exists. Maybe I am jaded? I am curious to know your thoughts on this age old question “what is love”…
I thought love was a battlefield, myself.
I have the same opinion about cake. Cake doesn’t exist, it’s just a combination of eggs, milk, flour, and sugar.
[sub]So help me, the first person to make a Portal reference is going to get banned.[/sub]
Is it entrapment when a mod actively incites someone to commit a bannable offense?
Nah. Love is:
- thicker than water
- like a rock
- like oxygen
- such an easy game to play
Further study reveals that if one is not in proximity to one’s regular lover, in some circumstances, it is allowable to avail oneself of nearby alternatives.
Well, of course, thats if you can’t be with the one you love. Not simply because you’re at the bar and she’s home with the kids.
God is Love (1 Jn 4:8), that is why it is hard, actually impossible for people to understand. Love is so much more then those things, it is a connection between people, knowing and being in each other’s souls. It is a mother knowing that her child needs her ‘now’ solely by that connection, It is 2 people in Love in sync as to sexual desire and being able to stir sexual desire in your partner by ‘thought’ alone. Love is feeling the other person there with you at any time. Love is connection to those you Love, Love is life. (Death being separation, the opposite of Love, God, Life)
The physical emotions is such a small part of it.
You say love is a combination of other emotions, but the emotions you list could also be considered combinations of other emotions. Almost all of our emotions could be looked at as a combination of two or more emotions. “Love” is just the word we use to describe a certain combination.
I’ve actually given this prolonged serious thought, after being engaged to a woman who had a different definition than me (which I could tell even before I’d figured out what my definition was).
I define love as being the state where, iff person B’s happiness is essential to the happiness of person A, then person A loves person B. So, if person B is happy, person A’s happiness will be increased. If person B is sad or in trouble, person A will become worried and distraught. Essentially by being in love with someone, you have hitched your wagon to theirs, and they drag you where they will.
This may sound a lot like merely caring about the person, which would mean that love is just more intense caring (hence the “essential” in there - that’s for the intensity). Personally I don’t have a problem with love just being an extreme case of caring about somebody.
Obviously your love for ice cream would be different from this, and lust and infatuation are other things entirely.
But…but…love is a many splendored thing! Love lifts us up where we belong! All you need is love!
What’s love got to do, got to do with it???
The cake is a girl with a short skirt and a long jacket.
I’m not even angry/
I’m being so sincere right now/
Even though you broke my heart/
and killed me.
Love is a conspiracy invented in 1910 by Hallmark and Hollywood. Some anthropologists may tell you that romantic love is a universal trait among all societies but they’re just projecting their Western cultural mores onto others. Now you don’t have to feel bad. Yay!
Your explanation is pretty elegant and simple. You love someone when your happiness is dependent on theirs.
Thanks! I seriously worked for about a month (on and off) on it, carefully considering everything and cutting through all the crap and accumulated baggage.
(Hm, reading that makes me sound like I’m pretty slow in the head to take that long. Oh well.)
Not necessarily dependent on theirs, per se (as I interpret this definition of love, which I like a lot), but rather intertwined with it.
I love my children. But if I couldn’t be happy until all three of them (not to mention my husband) were happy, I would be unhappy a lot.
But if one of them (a kid or the hubby) is unhappy, it does have an impact on my level of happiness.
Now, “love” for inanimate stuff (I ‘love’ peanut butter cups) is a whole 'nother thing. . .
Shakespeare had 'em beat by 300 years. As always, the Bard was on the leading edge.
Yeah, but he included fart jokes. Hallmark doesn’t have fart jokes.
Well, obviously it matters how unhappy they are. I imagine if they were screaming in agony on the rack, you might be a little more perturbed than usual. 
Also, in thinking back, the precise terminology I originally formulated was "you love someone if your happiness is dependent on their well-being. So you wouldn’t be necessarily bothered by a selfish hysterical screaming fit, if you think that they’re really just hamming it up for no reason, but you might be really bothered if they were happily getting stoned out of their mind on something destructive and addictive (like Americal Idol). It’s a slightly different criteria than happiness, anyway.