The question in the thread title is not rhetorical. While I’m perfectly happy to hear praises of parents, spouses, children, & best friends, I’m just as interested in whether there are Dopers who would say they love someone for reasons they cannot explain, even to themselves.
I don’t think you can ever explain exactly why you love someone. You can cover why you love them in the moment, but it’s impossible to explain entirely.
I love them because they make my life worth living.
I certainly can’t explain why I love myself so much. Scratch that. I just remembered it’s because I’m awesome.
Yes, I can perfectly articulate why I love him. But it would require way more typing than I can do now. I don’t believe that people can just randomly love for no reason whatsoever . . . or that anyone would want to be the recipient of that kind of love.
I love her because she is everything I wish I were.
Especially the green eyes. I’d kill to have green eyes.
I’ve never gotten over the image of this grown man jumping and splashing in great big rain puddles with a rainbow over his shoulders and jazz all around.
That was twenty-five years ago, and just the beginning.
Because he’s Irish!
Also because he has a shameless tendency to make bad puns whenever possible.
It’s hard to articulate why I love my kids. They’re just my kids, so I love them.
My recent romance, I love because he somehow found a way to make me feel that I could trust him to lean on him for support, even if I was too stubborn to. He was also smart where I wasn’t, liked to talk… there’s dozens of other reasons, and not enough space here.
Because she puts up with me.
I can articulate fairly well why I love Sr. Olives. I have a number of good, practical reasons for loving him – he is calm and steady and consistent, smart and compassionate and responsible. We have wildly different personalities but the same values and interests, which makes life both interesting and generally conflict-free. He’ll pretend to be an amoeba or an octopus just to make me smile, or wrap me up in a blanket and call me an ‘‘olives burrito,’’ or talk to me about politics or ninja turtles or whatever.
But it always feels as though I’ve left something out. No matter how much I say about him and the joy he brings to my life, there’s always something to add. ‘‘No,’’ I think to myself as I review the above explanation, ‘‘That’s not good enough. I left out our history, his bravery, his patience, the color of his eyes…’’ I could write a thousand volumes and it wouldn’t feel like enough, because I can’t believe this love is happening to me, has happened, for the last eight years. I know only a minority of people get this gift we have been given, and it feels like a miracle still. I don’t know how I got so lucky, but words are never enough.
Kindness
Some things go beyond words.
I’ve often been of the opinion that explainable love isn’t real, its an infatuation or someone trying to justify lust. You can’t explain or reason for true love. No disrespect to those making the attempt, I try all the time, its called flattery. Just that I can never really explain why.
I love my daughter because she loves me. I love her because she’s cute and silly and smart and funny. I love her because when I pick her up from school she screams “DADDY!” and runs to me to hug me and it makes me feel like the most important person in the world to her which is all I need. I love her because she teaches me things. I love her because it’s hilarious when she says she’s a baby T-Rex and stomps around the house announcing that baby T-Rexes would love a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, please. I love her because I get to watch her grow up, to turn from a baby to a toddler to a preschooler and someday to a child and a teenager and an adult, and the process is truly fascinating. I love her because I could be having the shittiest day ever but when I look at a picture of her my face breaks into a huge smile. I love her just because shes my child and that makes me love and it makes me happy that she’s mine.
I can give plenty of reasons that I like, appreciate and respect him. Those combine with something else that I really can’t explain. Everything together is why I don’t want to imagine my life without him.
Hey, is this some trick to get us to help you write an anniversary card? :dubious:
No, I can’t. But if you could see my smiling face right now and I told you that it’s because I’ve been thinking about my wife and kids, that’s as articulate as I can get on the subject.
I tried to find the title of the Hal Linden movie (I think) where he had a fling with a woman about half his age and was doing well with the differences until they got to discussing music and movies and such things. He decided the younger woman wasn’t what he needed and went to one closer to his age who could share memories of things he valued.
I’m not Hal and my love interest is not the one I went to after a failed attempt with a younger woman.
But the fact that we seem to complement what parts of our experiences that we don’t actually share makes the hard times so much easier to tolerate. We always seem to get pretty much the same points from things we enjoy and words aren’t all that necessary to say so.
I think that everyone has “needs” to be filled, and for some reason, the person you love fills that need.
Sometimes those needs are healthy and productive, and sometimes they may be unhealthy and damaging. But you still try to fill that “hole”.
I think this why, frequently, opposites attract - you are attracted to/love the traits that you don’t have yourself. One of my ex-SOs was very quiet and shy, and I’m open and talkative. Over time, I seemed to make him a little more outgoing, and I felt calmer when he was around.