# Love is inconsequential
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [June 25, 2001, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037 "2001-06-25T03:22:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Kunimitsu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kunimitsu)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/1 "2001-06-25T03:22:09Z")
Love is an illusory emotion which obstructs coherent contemplation and surrounds one’s common sense with false feelings of euphoria.
Love isn’t a default human emotion; it would be an invalid assumption to believe so. Rather, it presents human shortfall since it strays away from beneficial individualism.
Love is addictive and transient, therefore, the “requisite” urge to revert to feel love again is inevitable.
- This information is from my friend’s and I hobby book. Poetry if you will. \*
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### Author:  [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/2 "2001-06-25T03:51:44Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Love is an illusory emotion which … surrounds one’s common sense with false feelings of euphoria.
Whether or not euphoric feelings crowd out common sense, I’m not sure you would ascribe the word “false” to an emotional state in this sense.
> [@](#):
>
> Love isn’t a default human emotion.
Hmm. Any anecdotal evidence for this one? You go on to say that it is inevitable. Wouldn’t that make it a “default” emotion if we are bound to feel it by simply existing?
> [@](#):
>
> …it presents human shortfall since it strays away from beneficial individualism.
In what way? It would seem that love would bring together people to accomplish something beneficial (euphoria, though I think that would be a word better descibing infatuation) that the parties, respectively, couldn’t accomplish as individuals.
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### Author:  [@JonScribe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonScribe)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/3 "2001-06-25T05:24:46Z")
Sounds like Mr. Spock needs a little Ponfar action.
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### Author:  [@Fatwater\_Fewl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fatwater_Fewl)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/4 "2001-06-25T07:25:39Z")
Why do you refer to love as an emotion? If it is an emotion, it is a very complex one. Love involves euphoria, need, desire, responsibility (to yourself and others), sacrifice, laughter, tears, anger, grief. Love must be a chord.
Define love.
Is it a mouth?
Is a cigarette?
Is it how her sound is an orange precisely framed
in its own partially cut-away peel
on a walnut table?
Is it 30 years of 10 hour shifts and long weekends
and overtime at the steel mill looking forward
to the pension and finally time to spend
with your family? Is it the pancreatic cancer
and 8 months to a year to live that you find
you have when you retire from the mill?
Define love.
Is it the Planck Constant? the Heisenberg Uncertainty
Principle? is it the way a closed system creeps
towards entropy?
Is love these calluses on these palms and fingers
from shoveling asphalt in the June sun?
Is love the way I feel when my son living
8 hundred miles away with his mother tells me
“there’s a storm bigger than god coming up the coast”,
and, with his next breath, asks “is your telephone
black like thunder too?”
Is love how distance feels thirsty as water,
deeper than memory?
jm
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### Author:  [@Esprix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprix)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/5 "2001-06-25T07:32:01Z")
Love…
Soft as…
an easy chair.
Love…
fresh as…
the morning air!
Esprix
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### Author:  [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/6 "2001-06-25T08:57:41Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Love is a temple, love is a shrine,
> love is pure, and love is blind,
> love is my religious sign,
> I’m gonna leave this love behind.
>
> Love is hot and love is cold,
> I know what I’ve been told,
> Love is rock and love is roll,
> I just want someone to hold.
**Eurythmics** - _You Have Placed A Chill In My Heart_
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### Author:  [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/7 "2001-06-25T09:46:53Z")
:: singing :: _Love … exciting and new …_
_ **SMACK!!** _
Sorry … I’ll go sit down now …
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### Author:  [@MrO](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrO)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/8 "2001-06-25T09:54:20Z")
\*\* Love is an illusory emotion…\*\*
Yeah, but it’s fun. Even the bad parts are fun–all part of the tapestry of life. Anyway, everything is illusory.
\*\* …which obstructs coherent contemplation…\*\*
Speak for yourself! I contemplate very coherently when I’m in love.
\*\* …with false feelings of euphoria.\*\*
So what if it’s false? Pretty much all euphoria is false. I still like it.
Transient? Yes, like everything else. But some transient things last a lifetime.
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### Author:  [@MrO](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrO)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/9 "2001-06-25T10:05:25Z")
By the way, I swore off love for a while too, when I was younger and between marriages. One can live without it. But whether it’s natural or not, I think it’s good for us.
Also, I’m not sure what the debate is here. It seems like a display of cynicism intended to draw disagreement, but that isn’t really a debate. My cynicism is about as deeply rooted as anyone’s I know of, but that doesn’t mean I have to be all morose about everything.
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### Author:  [@Monkey\_Chews](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monkey_Chews)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/10 "2001-06-25T12:18:00Z")
Love, love is a verb
Love is a doing word
– _Teardrop_ by Massive Attack
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/11 "2001-06-25T12:44:35Z")
The thread title has to be the dumbest one written in the last year. No offense. 🙂
Say what you will about love, but it’s sure as heck not **inconsequential.** It has a LOT of consequences. It results in marriages, divorces, births, deaths, and much spending of money. I’d say there are a lot of consequences attached to it.
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### Author:  [@Kunimitsu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kunimitsu)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/12 "2001-06-25T15:10:05Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by RickJay \*
> \*\*The thread title has to be the dumbest one written in the last year. No offense. 🙂
>
> Say what you will about love, but it’s sure as heck not **inconsequential.** It has a LOT of consequences. It results in marriages, divorces, births, deaths, and much spending of money. I’d say there are a lot of consequences attached to it.
>
> \*\*
Inconsequential as in unimportant.
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### Author:  [@Trion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trion)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/13 "2001-06-25T15:16:40Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Esprix \*
> \*\*Love…
>
> Soft as…
>
> an easy chair.
> Love…
>
> fresh as…
>
> the morning air!
>
> Esprix \*\*
Urge to kill … rising.
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### Author:  [@kabbes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kabbes)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/14 "2001-06-25T15:53:52Z")
inconsequential != unimportant.
pan
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### Author:  [@kabbes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kabbes)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/15 "2001-06-25T16:10:27Z")
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think what uber-pretentious angsty-teen twaddle this is.
> [@](#):
>
> Love is an illusory emotion
A meaningless statement. What do you mean by this? Illusory? Illusory means that it doesn’t actually exist, but merely _appears_ to exist. What the hell does that mean in the context of emotion? Is hate illusory? What about happiness? Love can be a hell of a lot less transient than those - if anything I’d say it is the _least_ illusory “emotion”. Furthermore I’d second the questioning of love as an “emotion” anyway.
> [@](#):
>
> which obstructs coherent contemplation
really? So when couples decide to get married and build a life together, they are incapable of deciding this in “coherent contemplation”? That’s a gross insult to the millions of couples that have done exactly this - including, I’d wager, your own parents.
> [@](#):
>
> and surrounds one’s common sense with false feelings of euphoria.
Common sense? Now _there’s_ an illusory “emotion”. And “false feelings” is another meaningless piece of twaddle. How can a feeling be “false”? It’s not as if feelings are of substance - you can’t touch them. If you feel it, it exists as an emotion. If you feel euphoria, then you are euphoric. You can’t ascribe “false” to this. And what in the name of bloody hell is wrong with euphoria?
> [@](#):
>
> Love isn’t a default human emotion;
Woah. Care to tell us what you mean by “default human emotion”? What is the default emotion? Boredom? Fear? Anxiety? Teenage angst?
> [@](#):
>
> it would be an invalid assumption to believe so.
Nice. Care to back that up at all?
> [@](#):
>
> Rather, it presents human shortfall since it strays away from beneficial individualism.
Hold up folks, Ayn Rand’s come to town. “Beneficial individualism” indeed. There’s nothing beneficial about radical and blinkered individualism you know. No man is an island, after all. And that’s not even touching on the fact that the whole sentence is a _non sequiteur_ - the second part follows not at all from the first.
> [@](#):
>
> Love is addictive and transient,
Addictive **and** transient? Clever act to follow, that. And again - tell those couples who’ve been blissfully together for 50 years that it is “transient”. As pointed out at the beginning of this response, love can actually be the most _enduring_ of feelings.
> [@](#):
>
> therefore, the “requisite” urge to revert to feel love again is inevitable.
And so? This is the end of your “poem”? Is there a conclusion?
What’s the debate here anyway? If you wanted to impress us with your cleverness, you’d have been more advised to post it in MPSIMS. If you wanted to rant about love, try the pit. Are you trying to debate that love is worthless, that it is unnecessary in the 21st century? Because I’d point to the contentedness of millions of couples as counterargument. Oh - and the propogation of the species. Can you define your postulate a little better for us please?
pan
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### Author:  [@Fatwater\_Fewl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fatwater_Fewl)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/16 "2001-06-25T18:38:58Z")
You’re right, pan. There is no debate here. And this is a MPSIMS thread. Mods?
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### Author:  [@ChoosyChipsAndCeilingWhacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChoosyChipsAndCeilingWhacks)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/17 "2001-06-25T23:50:15Z")
Love…is a many splendored thing.
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### Author:  [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2001, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/18 "2001-06-25T23:53:47Z")
Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love!
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2001, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/19 "2001-06-26T00:09:06Z")
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
_sonnet 116_
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### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2001, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-is-inconsequential/70037/20 "2001-06-26T01:49:48Z")
\
Let’s have an actual debate about love instead of moving the thread. (can we? can we?)
Is there a single person that one is destined to fall in love with- ie “the one”- without whom we are incomplete? Or is love a funtion of proximity- meaning that you can fall in love deeply and unrepentantly with the nearest kind person- which would negate the idea of there only being one person who is right for each person?
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