Please talk about your experience with romantic love.

By “romantic love,” I mean relationships where you looked someone in the eye and said “I love you,” and really meant it. Maybe you married that person, maybe you didn’t. Maybe they left you or died, or maybe you just slept with them. In any case, who loves ya, baby, and who do you love? How did you meet him/her? When did you know it was true love? What has being in love taught you?

Great topic!
I have loved a few people in my time. I find that my definition of love and what it is or is not has evolved as I’ve matured, which I think (hope) is a pretty natural progession.
Some of the difficult realizations about love:
It doesn’t, truly, cure all. It’s possible to love someone and be profoundly disappointed in them. It’s possible to love someone and still have to end things because there are fundamental differences.
No good can come of a conversation that starts, “If you really loved me, you would…”
Love doesn’t mean “never saying” anything.

A realization it took me a while to grasp:
If you fall in love a second (or third or nth) time, it does not negate the love you had for the ones who came before.

Some of the really great stuff:
Love, hopefully, allows you to develop a sense of comfort and well-being with someone. In the best of all worlds, this person can still make your toes curl, but can also be great when you’re just curled up next to them, not really doing or saying anything.
A really good love can always pleasantly surprise you from time to time, even when you thought you knew every trick up your beloved’s sleeve.

I met my SO in a bar. It took us a while to go on our first date becasue of a variety of circumstances, but we spent almost every night on the phone, talking about everything under the sun. I had inklings of love even in those early days, because I was just so comfortable with him. He can still disappoint me at times, enrage me at others, but at the end of the day, there’s no place I’d rather be. He really is home to me.

Wow Lizard, you do ask the most provocative questions but this is a really good one. I met my sons father at 17 - thought it was love…it was lust. I met my daughters father a few years later - thoght it was love…it was a need for security.

I met the love of my life when I least expected it. (Do I ever get tired of talking about this man?) We worked together. HE was new, I tried to show him around. We were both Americans living in Europe. IT was slow, very very slow. We were friends first but right off the bat he was different. I found myself fixing my hair and my lipstick when I knew he’s be in, buying new clothes to go to lunch with him. We just clicked. He made me feel like the smartest sexiest woman alive. He told me that he loved who he was when he was with me. We have been involvedin a long distance relationship for while now. HE dates others and so do I but he is my main one and only true love. I know I will love him until I die. If he needed a kidney, I’d be signing up to donate. If he needed my life savings, I’d just have to give it. WHen things are bad, he can make them better with just a look. When things are greeat, he ithte first person I want to tell. Sex is amazing, the smallest movement sends thrils through my body. HE can turn me on by looking at me. His smell is love to me…

It isn’t always easy - especially far away and our general characters make it hard for us to get along but the bottome line I have learned is this. Don’t be in a hurry to settle down, you never know when the right person will come along. Love is difficult and ALWAYS worth it. Love is wanting that person to be happy even if it means that it isn’t always what you want. Worthwhile love is knowing that person feels the same way about you. Love is friendship above passion, love is feeling like family even if you aren’t related. Love can call at 4 in the morning and it is okay. Love is the two of you together against and for whatever life might bring. Love is loving that persons infuriating faults because if they weren’t there, they’d be a different person. I’m rambling adn I could go on for days.

He consumes me and there have been times I felt like I breathed for this man and yet…I have my own life too. He is a part of me but not all of me. I think that is important too. He lets me fly on my own and encourages me to develop into whatever I can be. How groovy is that?

I met my boyfriend online in 1996. We were both 16 at the time and neither of us had any intentions of meeting the other person. We were just bored and wanted some one to talk to. Two years later we met in person. We started dating two months later. We broke up for about three years but are now engaged.

There’s no one in this world that I am more comfortable with. I can do almost anything with him. I’m not afraid to say anything to him. I knew there had to be something special about him when my mother liked him.

Of course nothing is easy. Right now we live 350 miles apart. He’s in the Navy and I’m still trying to finish college. We try to see each other as often as possible, but sometimes it’s over a month between visits. We often fight because of the frustration of our situation, but the way we see it is we’re going through the worst right now. Things can only get better.

Humph! Too bad there is such an apparent paucity of Love on the SDMB.(Only three posts in 12 hours?!) How much you want to bet no a single man will post in this thread?

:frowning: Sorry dude. I love to talk about love but some people would just rather bitch about sex.

Wait until later – some guys will show.

“The sun’s gone dim,
and the moon’s turned black;
For I loved him,
and he didn’t love back.”

Dorothy Parker

I really didn’t get a chance to say it until it was too late. I won’t make that mistake again.

Lizard, to quote Calvin Coolidge,“You lose.”

To be fair, I should’ve explained why I didn’t respond to my own poll. I don’t feel I’ve ever truly been in love. I’ve told one person in my lifetime that I loved them. This was when I was quite young, and I later felt I’d merely conflated lust with love. So I broke up with her. But even more years removed, I could see that woman would’ve made a great match with me. I don’t think I truly loved her then, but if I’d been smarter, I certainly could have learned to. She genuinely cared for me, and I deeply underestimated how hard that was to find. At the very least, she was worth more of an effort than I gave her.

Sigh Regret. The invisible burden that lives forever.

:confused:

Love. Whata wonderful emotion. I’ll not get all philosophical because I’ll exceed the 6200 character limit.

I met my wife whilst in Graduate school. I came back to work in a Restaurant I had not worked in for 3 years. She was working there and when I came back. Wondering what all the fuss was in the Pub she came in and introduced herself, and said, “Nice to finally put a face to the name that has been on the schedule for the past 2 weeks”.

BAM!!! I was in love. I had got out of a rocky relationship a year prior, swore off women till I thought I understood them. Very similar story with her. We went to a movie 3 days after meeting, and have spent nearly every night with each other since. 2190 days later we are married, own our own home, and both work in academia…

She is my best friend, I am hers. We are the couple that everyone always says were meant to be together. For more info cite the recent thread in GD about love at first sight.

The paradox of truly humbling things–that though they are humbling, they uplift.

The paradox of vulnerability–that the more open your armor, the stronger you are.

That astonishingly stupid songs can make you smile when you’re drunk on it.

How deeply suffering can cut.

And how high joy can lift.

In other words, just the usual stuff.

Lizard - regret is not an invisible burden that lives for ever. Love has the unique ability to wipe away such inclings. When you find her, you will see. It is certainly a case where you need to feel it to believe me. :slight_smile: have little fear you’ll find her, and it’ll happen quicker. Not to sound cliche but self-fullfilling prophecy is not a fallacy.

It makes me feel better to believe youa re right. :slight_smile:

Love. For me it’s meant very different things in different relationships. I love my mother, my father, my brother, my friends, all in different ways and that’s also gone for my romantic relationships.

The two people I’ve felt as though I’m “in love” with:

The first was a woman. That was intense, emotional, but ultimately quite restrictive. It started well and was overall a wonderful experience, but ended with jealousy and recrimination and just generally not good stuff. We’re friends again now though and that’s all to the good. I don’t regret the time we spent together and I have a great friend out of it. :slight_smile:

Various men and a woman later… (all of whom I’m still friends with, so again no regrets)

My current boyfriend. My favourite intellectual sparring partner who’s also gentle and considerate and sweet. :slight_smile:

Sorry. Can’t do it. No experiance. Just ask my wife! :smiley:


Never kiss an animal that can lick its own butt.

I met my husband in college. We were both freshmen and I was in a horrible relationship (long story)

Anyway we started hanging out after class and Sophomore year I got him to go to dinner with me one night. I honestly did not want that night to end… We had the most wonderful time.

I’m not sure exactly when I knew it was real but that Thanksgiving I asked him to marry me someday. We fit together very well and are eachother’s best friend.

We married 5 years later and have been married for almost 7 years now and have 1 1/3 children, a house, dog, 4 cats and a minivan. I love him more today than I did then. What I didn’t realize is how much love grows as it matures. He can still take my breath away :slight_smile:

My boyfriend of more than two years and I have known each other since we were 12. Evan and I used to walk home together from school with some other friends. Of course, at the time there was nothing going on between us, but I considered him a pretty good friend.

After high school started (when we were 15), we both drifted apart. I always knew I could talk to him about everything though, if the need ever showed itself.

I dated a few guys during high school, and I’m afraid those were rather pointless relationships. I know now that the only reason I was ever interested in those guys was because they were interested in me. I told them I loved them, but at the time I didn’t fully understand how much it really means.

Then we started hanging out again more and more towards the end our senior year (nearly 18 years old now). I began to feel even more comfortable around him than before, and soon it was just the two of us hanging out, without the rest of our friends.

Before I knew it, the two of us would spend hours talking on the phone when we weren’t together. He was always telling me he usually hates talking on the phone, but it was different with me. Of course, I was too dense to see this as a hint to his feelings (d’oh!). I was already completely head over heels for him. There was no one I trusted more or cared more about than him. He was, without a doubt, my best friend.

We eventually became a couple in the middle of our freshman year in college. The first time I felt his hand wrap around mine, my heart skipped a beat. The first time we kissed, I could feel myself melting away. When I looked into his eyes, I knew exactly what it must be like to be in Paradise.

My feelings for him are only stronger now. Every day, I love and appreciate everything about him more and more.

I know what you mean.