LOve is a battlefield!
** Esprix **, you know we love you…but if you’re going to be a gay cliche, couldn’t you be a * good * gay cliche? Quoting horrific Streisand songs? Yipes. Garland, bubelah, * much * cooler.
stoid
Mock not Babs, or I will start quoting copiously from “Broadway” and “Back to Broadway.”
Esprix
Love is not inconsequential, romance is. In this society we are raised to believe in the Knight in Shining Armor. Our lovers are supposed to show how much they love us by buying flowers and chocolates, and diamonds. We are supposed to feel that heady rush of lust, and passion. And if we don’t, there is something wrong with us. And if we do, then we get addicted, and when that finally goes away, we feel like there is something really important missing.
Love brings out the best and worse in all of us. But, the best tends to stick around the longest. I know that now I am not as selfish, I put my husbands needs before my own. I know that I go out of my way to take care of someone else. I am considerate. I am kind, tender, and gentle, because I want only the best for him. Fortunately, he feels the same for me. And it balances out in the end.
Romance=lust and passion.
Love=compassion, understanding, support, and selflessness.
Don’t get the two confused.
elfkin477
“Is there a single person that one is destined to fall in love with- ie “the one”- without whom we are incomplete?”
I would say no and yes. That is, I don’t believe there’s only one unique individual who can make each of us complete; but I do believe that love completes us.
" 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?"
IMO, definitely not. The nearest kind person may make a great squash partner, but is not likely to inspire deep and unrepentant love just b/c he or she happens to be handy. I’m not so sure about unrepentant anyway. I’ve sometimes repented love, though on the whole I’m with Tennyson: better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
kunumitsu, there’s nothing particularly beneficial about individualism. That said, I think part of what you’ve noticed is that love is individualistic: a kind narcissistic self-involvement; a reversion to a childish state of bliss.
If you’re lucky though–and if you really work at it–love can oscillate between self-absorbing bliss and something mellower than that; something that makes you into a better human being.
Love is trust
I um, actually, uh…like that song.
d&r