LOVE

[Brodie]

I personally believe "love" is something man-made and is built rather than found. It all starts with meeting someone that you have much in common with, and then giving each other your complete trust, and devoting yourself to each other. My best friend for instance. I love him. I would do anything for him, and he would do the same for me. I would give him the shirt off my back, and he would give me his. I can tell him anything, and he can do the same. We never lie to each other, and we never violate each other's trust. We also have a lot in common and can usually agree on any subject. He has always been there for me, and never abandoned me, and he actually puts forth effort towards the friendship. I never have to ask him to hang out or worry if he'll ever call me if I don't call him, because I know I'll get a call from him at some point. Love is a mutual thing, I feel it comes with time. To me, love is about appreciating another person as a flawed human being, respecting them and their weaknesses, recognizing their strengths, and being there for them, and also at the same time, having a lot in common and sharing your life with them, whether it be through marriage, or a long lasting friendship that endures the test of time.

 

[Arianna]

I personally believe "love" is something man-made and is built rather than found. It all starts with meeting someone that you have much in common with, and then giving each other your complete trust, and devoting yourself to each other. My best friend for instance. I love him. I would do anything for him, and he would do the same for me. I would give him the shirt off my back, and he would give me his. I can tell him anything, and he can do the same. We never lie to each other, and we never violate each other's trust. We also have a lot in common and can usually agree on any subject. He has always been there for me, and never abandoned me, and he actually puts forth effort towards the friendship. I never have to ask him to hang out or worry if he'll ever call me if I don't call him, because I know I'll get a call from him at some point. Love is a mutual thing, I feel it comes with time. To me, love is about appreciating another person as a flawed human being, respecting them and their weaknesses, recognizing their strengths, and being there for them, and also at the same time, having a lot in common and sharing your life with them, whether it be through marriage, or a long lasting friendship that endures test of time.

Brodie...how old are you? That's some deep insight.. And are you ever blessed..

 

[mimizu]

That's a very rare thing... you are lucky to have a true friend.

 

[Brodie]

I am 20 years old. I'll be 21 on March 6th, 2008.

 

[diamond-dancer]

I dont know what to say. I have never experienced it. Any information from people that have?

I think love is an entirely subjective feeling. It isn't the same for everyone, but there are definately some common factors. There is a certain rose coloured glasses aspect to it, whereby the night doesn't seem so dark anymore. It is a feeling of comfort and can also become addictive.

For me it was putting the milk in the cupboard and the cereal in the fridge because I couldn't stop thinking about him.

Losing love is a death.

Feeling love die is a long, drawn out illness. Some people fight harder than others to keep it alive, but once it's gone it's gone.

Having it torn away from you is a non-fatal gunshot wound to the chest. Quick, fast and incredibly painful. You feel physically sick in your chest and gut. It takes a long time to recover and even when/if you do you still have the scar. Some people never seem to recover.

 

[IgnoredOne]

I've always thought that love meant, in the words of a great poet, "...not focusing on what makes you happy, but what makes someone else happy." As such, true love is a combination of adoration, selflessness, and caring for the sake of someone else. It is entirely and completely possible to love without it being requited, and I'll be very miffed if anyone disagrees, because I know what I felt was real

In that sense, I've been fortunate in knowing people who've found true, idealized love. A friend's grandparents who married in their teens and died together in their seventies; a couple of a younger girl and an older man who met online and built together in the best example of domestic happiness that I've yet seen; and a girl in her sixties who still pined for a man she fell for when she was 14. And of course, I'll never forget my first and painful experience with love.

I wonder, though. Pure, idealized love seems to fade for the most part once individuals ages. It might be a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy - as we grow more bitter and doubtful, we offer less love, and receive less of the same. In the end, relationships become some sort of compromise and the passionate idealization of youth isn't there anymore. Or maybe its just hormones.

For me, I think the difference between my more passionate younger affairs and what I have now, even nonsexual, are best illustrated by the following conversations I had, nearly verbatim.

PAST:
Me: "You know everything that I've achieved, I've done to be worthy of you."
Her: "I would have loved you even if you were a hobo."
Me: "I could have never done that to you. Why do you love me?"
Her: "You took it upon yourself to tame someone as unruly as me."
Me: "I would have known all the women in the world, and still chosen you."
Her: "You don't know all of girls. Heh."
Me: "You are so beautiful. That I can hold you for another hour - I am the luckiest man in the world."
[mutual happiness]

NOW:
Me: "No other woman could have been half a muse as you are to me."(I avoid saying that I love her)
Her: "Awh."
Me: "You possess that rare quality - talent, perhaps, of grace."
Her: "Muses lead sad lives."
Me: "Why?"
Her: "They spend their lives fulfilling the dreams of others."
[mutual silence and discomfort]

Either way, I'm still going to decide and choose the path of hopeless romantic. I'm a writer, what do you expect?

 

[armor4sleepPA]

I wonder, though. Pure, idealized love seems to fade for the most part once individuals ages.

I think love evolves over time, and manifests itself in different ways. Love is also multifaceted, in that after the honeymoon phase is over, it becomes less passionate. Then, it becomes more functional, as couples work together to accomplish common goals. Eventually, it is an issue of loyalty and completeness.

My grandparents were married 51 years before my grandmother died, and they were very much in love. We never witnessed them do much cuddling, and they each had seperate chairs and beds. However, you could just feel the love. It was more like they were a single entity than two individuals. When she died, he was never the same, as part of him was gone forever. It's like that biblical reference to how the two become one flesh. Obviously in a metaphysical sense, unless you're counting consumation

 

[IgnoredOne]

I think love evolves over time, and manifests itself in different ways. Love is also multifaceted, in that after the honeymoon phase is over, it becomes less passionate. Then, it becomes more functional, as couples work together to accomplish common goals. Eventually, it is an issue of loyalty and completeness.

My grandparents were married 51 years before my grandmother died, and they were very much in love. We never witnessed them do much cuddling, and they each had seperate chairs and beds. However, you could just feel the love. It was more like they were a single entity than two individuals. When she died, he was never the same, as part of him was gone forever. It's like that biblical reference to how the two become one flesh. Obviously in a metaphysical sense, unless you're counting consumation

And this is very true. The grandparent couple which I mentioned died within a year of each other - they had come to rely on each other so totally, that one could have survived the other for long. There is something beautiful about it, I feel. It was a very functional co-dependency that our society tends to destroy these days, much to our loss, I feel.

I think the true tragedy that as these examples become increasingly lost to history, more and more people are cosigning them to their fate as myth.

 

[Blue Sky]

I know that I have alot of love in me, and I think that it's a good thing. I have also experieinced all different types of love throughout my life, from unconditional love from my mother, to being in love with a women, to loving a pet. Or when someone really hurts you, but your love for them isn't broken. It's when the love is only coming from one side, or having your heart broken, or someone you love dies , well thats the hard part, very hard. I just wish that love was more prominant between people and countries today, it would make this world such a better place to live in.

 

[IgnoredOne]

Well spoken. Being told that its "not real" because its not requited is just rubbing salts into it.

 

[Skorian]

I recently heard somewhere that love is actually just another word for trust. Which makes alot of sense.

Sadly though I lost most of my ability to just trust people as a child due to the way I was treated. I tend to always feel that people are just out for themselves and am always looking for what peoples true motives are for things. Even if people are just nice, I have a hard time believing that they don't have some other alterier motive. Not that I can't trust people for some things, just when there is a chance that I will be hurt I tend to lock people out so they can't even get a little close. What is frustraiting is it is on an instinctual level. I don't even really have much choice in the matter. It's like a reflex. I have even litterally run physically away from people who payed attention to just me. It's like I built a 15 foot thick wall of solid titanium thats 1000 feet high. Though maybe it's more of a dome. It has some tiny port holes so I can talk to people, but it is very effective at keeping me in and everyone else out.

I bairly spoke for 10-15 years. My communication skills pretty much consisted of raising my hand to answer questions in class. I didn't feel safe just talking to people because at home I was screamed at half the time whenever I voiced my thoughts or opinions on anything. It's very sad when an adult's identity is threatened by the words of a child. I credit my ability to talk with people over the net to the 2 years I spent playing Everquest.

Can't say as I believe in love myself. I have never seen it. The world seems so full of people who just like to hurt each other.

 

[mink]

Can't say as I believe in love myself. I have never seen it. The world seems so full of people who just like to hurt each other.

Yeah..and I'm sorry that I happen to be one of those people..
Saw love and all I did was hurt myself by hurting the other and hurting the love.

 

[Kristen]

I recently heard somewhere that love is actually just another word for trust. Which makes alot of sense.

makes sense to me too. But if I can't trust---I can't love????
mmm...that makes no sense..im confused... this love thing had kept the greatest minds occupied and busy for centuries and no one seems to have figured it out...yet


I believe in love and that it expires I know..lol

 

[toxic-tears]

Love... love is unconditional. when somebody finds its true love everything is acceptable between both part.

but having unconditional love sometimes gives problem. but every relationship got problems, right! sometimes eventhough couples fight there is still love between the quarrels. kiss and make up!.

when love comes into ones' life, most of the time it is noticable. it will only be notice on ones' absence.

 

[Skorian]

I recently heard somewhere that love is actually just another word for trust. Which makes alot of sense.

makes sense to me too. But if I can't trust---I can't love????
mmm...that makes no sense..im confused... this love thing had kept the greatest minds occupied and busy for centuries and no one seems to have figured it out...yet


I believe in love and that it expires I know..lol

How could you ever love someone that you couldn't trust? I would imagine that what you would have instead is a desire to be loved and maybe a delusion that what you have is love. I think it's possible to have a desire to be loved only it's only a desire and not actually love. I think that is part of the root of the term love/hate relationships. There is never actually love, just the desire for it and the lost expectation of ever getting it. You sit on the edge of it and yet never achieve it. It's sort of like trying to hit the ground on a trampoline, through the trampoline. It will always give resistence from actually achieving that goal. The only solution is to actually step off the trampolin and give up on touching the ground through it.

If that makes sense. I think alot of people at the very least get stuck at that stage.

Only what should the ground do if it can't exactly just move that spot out from under the trampline? As the object grew from it and is part of it?

Not the best analogy, but it's what I could think of.

I guess though since we are talking about people it's dangerous to define people or such concepts in finite terms. Since people are near infinite in many regards

 

[Kristen]

I think its possible to still love a person if they hurt u. Because u have been hurt by them u don't trust them anymore and don't want to be with them. So the relationship is over. Because how can a healthy relationship exist without trust, right? But often the relationship is over, but love is not, cause u can't get over them for a while or for ever. I know that for sure. It happened to me. I loved some one still after we got lost....lol...it was more like suffering though.

So still we try to guess what love is. But for sure we have no idea. Some say love is based on trust.. Relationship --is. But with unconditional love u love them no metter what they do to u. But this insanity happens to certain people only and once in a life time. If its mutual--its haven, if not--hell. lol

I know its funny...but sometimes u ask some one :"Why do u love him/her so much, what do u see in him/her, what do u love them for?"
And the answer can be as simple and as crazy and foolish as:"I have no clue.., I just do.."

And also I noticed that u love different people in a different way (not for different reasons.)

 

[Qui]

I have to say, I don't know what love is. Haven't the slightest clue.
I read somewhere that teenagers aren't mentally able to love yet so maybe that's why.
All the teenagers I see every day seem to only be capable of backstabbing and bitchiness.
But whatever, I'll figure it out some day. Or I'll be that old maid aunt that is only invited over at the holidays because everyone feels bad for them, not because they make good company. I'll be one hell of a crotchety old lady. XD

 

[lonelyloser]

Love is what you feel when you feel that you're in love. There's no right or wrong. In today's society, it's very easy to become cynical about love. That doesn't necessarily mean that you should give up on it. But don't ever expect it to happen to you. We innately know who is good and bad. Trust your own instincts and don't let one stupid person make you change your views about everyone else.

 

[Kristen]

I read somewhere that teenagers aren't mentally able to love

who wrote that..lol? I feel sorry for the author. They missed out on some great feelings. I was one of those that were falling in and out of love all the time..lol...Actually, during those years I think feelings are most pure. I think teens can love because why would ppl marry their "highschool sweethearts?"
I had a classmate in highschool he was crazy about this girl, she wasn't about him. They graduated, he married someone else, cause everybody has to sooner or later. But when he saw her somewhere in public, he said, his heart was pounding and he could'nt get her out of his mind for days.
And he still suffers even though she moved far away .
With other girlfriend that I know..in past..we would get really drunk and then all the secrets that u would never tell when sober, just start pouring out...in many cases with tears or hysterical laughter. So before some folks went numb and passed out for the night they turned into freaks...and started acting weird and life threatening...... And those that managed to stay awake and keep a conversation straight put together some odd letter sounds they could still pronounce and kept on blabbering whatever for hhooooouuurs...lol
And in the mornig we would be like :"daaaamn, did I really say that?I was lieing u know, I was really drunk making up stuff...can u just forget it please and not tell anyone? But it's vise versa..
anyway, she drank a lot and then one night she said that if this married guy,that I had no idea she had major crush on for years, wanted to be together she would break up with her fiance and run off with him. Seh was 19.
I believe all ages can love except for preschool ---where sponge-bob is major crush person.

 

[human_condition]

Love is worth the spirit- breaking pain it causes
love is feeling safe and wanted all the time
love is knowing someone so well you might as well be them