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Ok. What's it like to be in love?
I'm empathetic and curious that's all.

>>2651

Well, usually this happens first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence

Later on, that wears off, and people either feel like they aren't in love anymore, or they grow up a little and realize that a pair of people can merely be comfortable with each other, and that codependency isn't necessarily the terrible disease our society usually treats it as.

>>2656
That's... kinda depressing.

>>2656
I have heard of people who did not feel the need to have their love reciprocated. What is your opinion on that?

>>2656
Thank you for posting that. This is also how I see love, in general. It bothers me to no end when dumb teens who have never dated anyone for longer than five months claim that ever-lasting passionate love is the norm.

I love you (in the sense that your post made me gush with happiness and I think you are probably a cool dude).

According to the dictionary: As a noun, it is an intense feeling of deep affection. As a verb, it is to feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone.

According to John Lee, there are many different types of love. You might be interested in this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_styles

You might also find this interesting even if you aren't a spiritual person:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Loves

>>2682
Oh, and Stenberg's triarchic theory.
http://www.intrapsychictaxonomy.org/sternberg.htm

rude

>>2683
Frankly, I don't understand how intimacy + passion could be called romantic love when intimacy alone is friendship. If fucking is an act of passion, how would one describe fucking their close friends in a non romantic way? We live in the age of friends with benefits, after all. And how is infatuation solely physical? You can be infatuated with someone's mind.

I think romantic love is what one feels during the "honeymoon period" (often but not always limerence). When it wears off, the couple can still be great friends and live together. I don't believe it is possible to feel romantic love towards a very large group of people.. wouldn't feeling something so strong for more than, say, five people drive someone insane?

>>2687
I think friends with benefits might be fatuous love, but I don't see why commitment is required for that type of relationship.

>>2677

It's only depressing if you think of sharing your quiet and peaceful life with somebody as a bad thing. But of course you do, you're American. lol

>>2678

As it happens, I'm one of those people. To me, love is a gift and a promise. When I love somebody, I want to see them happy. I want to do everything in my power to ease their worries and comfort them in times of need. I want to make them feel free.

Nothing about that implies that I need it back. I love them, not our relationship.

>>2687

Fucking is passion. Intimacy is knowing somebody and being comfortable around them.

Mind you, I still think the "theory" is wanky bullshit just as bad as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. There is nothing about emotions that you can truly understand better by categorizing them. If that were true, they could teach robots to love, and I'd have a girlfriend.

>>2690
Does it hurt when you are far from those you love? What if they not only did not reciprocate your emotions, but disliked you? Would it feel like a break up?

>>2692
It is bullshit. Still, it might give you new ideas about the meaning of love. Looking at other people's perspective is always enlightening in a way.

>>2690
Why do you suppose certain people feel pain when their feelings are not reciprocated?

>>2695

I pretty much already said it, I think. People often care more about the relationship than the person they're in it with. It makes sense, in a way. Nobody ever completely understands even themselves, so if you love somebody, what you actually love is your understanding of them, which is only tenuously related to reality. The best and most solid relationship has this kind of idealization to some degree.

It basically comes down to a decision that we rarely make consciously: are me and my partner simply agreeing to be together because we each get something out of the arrangement that we enjoy, or is that something I want because I like them so much that I feel devoted to their happiness?

>>2695
In my case, I feel safer in a relationship. I assume that someone who reciprocates my feelings:

A. Won't judge me for being the way I am
B. Will feel pain if I am hurt (as I will inevitably feel pain when they are)
C. Won't abandon me.

So, for me, I guess it is a question of safety. I don't feel safe loving someone if I know they could break me any time they felt like it. If I open up to someone it make it very easy for them to tear me apart, I guess, probably because my self esteem is already dirt low. When I fall in love with someone who might be a threat, I try to force myself to be more rational and to fall out of love. I'm sure others feel this way as well. And maybe I've just had poor luck with friendships, but I believe that most of my friends will judge me, feel no real empathy towards me and will leave if they feel like it. I accept and realize that. I guess I expect people who reciprocate my feelings not to pull that shit.

OP: Romantic love is like being set on fire. You'll know what it is when you feel it.

>>2706
Being set on fire doesn't sound very pleasant.

>>2707
Let me rephrase that: it's as if you were a masochist or suicidal and were set on fire. It is like being high on ecstasy and getting struck by lightning. It is like getting a blowjob and a punch in the face at the same time. It is as if heaven and hell merged in a blasphemous union. It's powerful.

I guess what I am describing is what one feels right after being struck by cupid's arrow. What one feels after the passion fades could also be called love. That sort of love is more like a very close friendship, I guess. It is a feeling of very deep empathy for each other.

>>2709
Basically: If you want to feel passionate love, suck on a rockaleta lollipop.

Different people feel things differently, however. I think most do not feel the pain as strongly as I do.

>>2707
Hence: Baby don't hurt me.

http://youtu.be/BF9TjbdJyUE

Where do you guys suppose romantic jealousy comes from, when it doesn't stem from a fear of being abandoned by the person you trust the most? Because that fear can be quelled pretty fucking easily. I am pretty sure most people do not have abandonment issues. So are people jealous because that's what society says that's what normal people ought to feel, or what?

And what's up with sexual jealousy? That's something I don't understand at all. It is entirely possible to have sex with someone without being in love with them or caring for them at all. No reason to be jealous that your partner is boning other people if you know he won't ditch you for whoever he is boning.

>>2720

I don't think there is anything else romantic jealousy comes from. When you have strong feelings for somebody, you don't have to have issues to feel scared of losing them. Our society very strongly conditions people to believe that love is automatically exclusive, so if somebody you love starts to show feelings for somebody else, the fear isn't even due to a thought process. It's just there, because to the jealous person, "they like somebody else" and "they don't like me" are the same thing.

As for sexual jealousy, it basically comes down to the fact that even though people can separate sex and emotions, they're generally really awful at it.

>>2723
I don't think people are generally awful at separating sex and emotions, or maybe it depends on who they are boning. Prostitutes can fuck twenty dudes a day without caring about them and many guys try to bone as many chicks as possible for the sake of social status. It really ain't hard.

>>2724

Yeah, and those approaches to sexuality almost never result in long-term mental health consequences.

>>2725
I don't think they do. Guys who try to fuck as many girls as possible are extremely, extremely common. What's your source on that approach to sex causing long term mental health consequences, anyways?

>>2728

You're seriously telling me you've never talked to one of those guys after they've grown up even slightly and start feeling the lack of intimacy?

>>2729
No, but then again I don't know many people. Maybe the "free love" thing is like communism -- it sounds good in theory, but doesn't work in practice. I wouldn't know.

>>2739

Calling modern college kids' "who gives a shit" approach to sex "free love" is a mockery of the old hippy ideal by that name. Fucking lots of people can work great if you allow yourself some real emotional interest, but most peoples' understanding of promiscuity specifically disallows that, and breaking that rule gets you labeled creepy and desperate. It's gross.

rude

>>2740
Wouldn't showing real emotional interest in someone you are just boning be more likely to lead to a tragic ending and mental health problems? What if you accidentally fall in love and get your heart smashed, ya know? Modern promiscuity stops that from happening (I think). It's physical pleasure without the emotional pain.

>>2744

This is how I know you understand nothing of the proper cultural context of the term "free love."

The best way to explain it to a person who is unfamiliar with the concept is by examining the cliche "love the one you're with." People often see that phrase as a euphemistic way to describe simple promiscuity, but if we take it at face value, it's actually much deeper.

You might only be with a person for a short time, and might never see them again, but everything you learn about them in that little bubble is beautiful and interesting, if you allow yourself to appreciate it without judgement. This means quite a bit more than just fucking, and conversation isn't a game you're playing to win the fucking.

It means comforting and gentle touch, listening to a person's stories, and exercising concern for their well-being. It's earnestly attempting to fully appreciate the value of a person you've only known for a couple hours. It's being able to do this with many people, in series or in parallel, because you are letting go of your expectations about the future and allowing yourself to feel the community of the present: you are each struggling through the same reality, and the differences between each person, known or not, only serve to accentuate what you all have in common.

Physical pleasure without that kind of intimacy is not satisfying or healthy in the long term. It makes our capacity for empathy flabby and sluggish in the same way that a diet of cheetos does to our flesh. Free love has its risks, to be sure, but unemotional promiscuity isn't risky, it's just bad.

>>2746
Personally, I feel that a couple of hours is not nearly long enough to know a person or to appreciate the depth of their soul. It's like chugging fine wine instead of taking time to savor it-- you only get a short taste of the person you are talking to instead of getting the full experience. Me, I figure that if you're gonna chug something, it might as well be cheap beer.

And you gotta keep in mind that when you just meet a person, what they show you is often a mask, not their real self. It's a little naive to think that you can fully appreciate the value of someone that you've only known for a few hours. After all, you might find out that the person you found oh-so-admirable those first few hours turned out to be Hitler.

I don't see why sex and emotions have to go hand in hand, but to each their own. I am still of the opinion that modern promiscuity is not particularly toxic. I mean, guys can masturbate without needing their fleshlights to have a soul, right?

>>2749

You can't really know a person in that amount of time, no. That's not really what I was saying. It's more like... loving the unknown. As I said, it involves letting go of expectations and judgement. If you had time to get to know that person properly, you indeed might not fit with them. It's a bit difficult for me to explain, but... this isn't about not caring that you don't fit together, it's about being okay with that possibility, because the moment is the important thing. It's sort of a decision that you don't need all the details to fully accept a person, as opposed to just their body.

Anyway, I'm not saying that this is the only way to do things all the time. We all eat some junk food now and then. Our lives would probably be a great deal less enjoyable if we didn't! But if cheetos are a staple of your diet, you're doing it wrong.

>>2746
Wait, wait. Where did you get this definition of free love? I did some googling and from what I'm finding, it seems free love was just a movement which rejected marriage and argued that sexual matters should be separated from the state. I am finding nothing against the concept of modern promiscuity. It seems, to me, that those who followed the movement during the hippie era would have been completely okay with it.

free love
noun
noun: free love
1.the idea or practice of having sexual relations according to choice, without being restricted by marriage or other long-term relationships.

>>2797

A line from the dictionary or a few paragraphs from a wiki article that retrospectively summarize the political agenda of a movement isn't sufficient to express the guiding ethos of the counterculture that popularized it. "Free love" as it is generally used has much more to do with that more nebulous stuff than it does with anti-marriage activism.

>>2799
May I have a source on that...? Because from what I'm finding, it sounds like the "free love" guys were just advocating the idea that people should do what they want with their genitals.

also:
>>2746
>>You might only be with a person for a short time, and might never see them again, but everything you learn about them in that little bubble is beautiful and interesting, if you allow yourself to appreciate it without judgement. This means quite a bit more than just fucking, and conversation isn't a game you're playing to win the fucking. It means comforting and gentle touch, listening to a person's stories, and exercising concern for their well-being. It's earnestly attempting to fully appreciate the value of a person you've only known for a couple hours. It's being able to do this with many people, in series or in parallel, because you are letting go of your expectations about the future and allowing yourself to feel the community of the present: you are each struggling through the same reality, and the differences between each person, known or not, only serve to accentuate what you all have in common.

If I understand this correctly, that just sounds like friendship to me-- and not even very deep friendship, because you'll want to see your close friends more than once. Maybe it's because I'm so used to it, but feeling deep empathy and curiosity toward others seems, well, almost mundane.

Sorry for being such a retard regarding this topic. I always equated limerence to love because other people seem to do so.

>>2800 here.
On second thought, it doesn't even sound like friendship to me. It sounds like something I'd feel towards an acquaintance. Don't most people feel empathy and curiosity toward others..? I think there is something I am misunderstanding.

>>2801

>Don't most people feel empathy and curiosity toward others..?

If you honestly believe that, it may explain your confusion about this topic.You seem to come from an alternate reality where the average person is not obsessed with self and status.

>>2803
Isn't it possible to be obsessed with self and status yet feel empathy and curiosity toward others? I figured we were all somewhat narcissistic.

>>2746
It is fascinating. If I understand correctly (which I probably do not lololololol), to certain people, the word love seems to means less than the word like; friendship is deeper than love. We were saying similar things, but in different ways-- I assumed that sex without what you would call love was simply impossible to non-sociopaths.

If you know of any literature on the topic of the hippie view of love, I'd love to check it out. This shit be fascinating, yo.

 i am a sage fag

I generally say I love someone when I know I would mourn their loss if they were to die. The more I think I would mourn, the more I love the person.

If I wouldn't shed tears at the person's funeral, to me, it ain't love.

 i am a sage fag