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Thoughts on love?

So, I was walking home today, and I was thinking; love doesn't exist (by love I mean love between two humans). Think about relationships; you fall in love over looks (or whatever) and then have a brief happy romantic period- you get married, you have kids....

But, you lose that love- the spark goes; your significant other becomes unbearable, you have a mid-life crisis, you cheat and you divorce- its not love!
And the problem arises because of emotions, hormones and desires- love is nothing more than hormones dominating; nothing more than high dopamine levels, and once you marry- its all stale.

And then there arises the issue of marriage and children and your wife (guys). You had dreams, ambitions and hopes- but your partner forces you to concede- first a little, then a bit more and then BAM! too far into the quagmire, no turning back- you've got 3 kids, a people carrier and podgy, whiny wife/beer-belly impotent husband.

I've never had a relationship, or fallen in love, but I draw from invaluable sources- literature+ reason and experience. Literature is effectively life- it connects with us and shows what it means to be human- and part of that is faling in "love"- take Prince Andrei Bolonski in War and Peace; he once that "never get married"- he was unhappy and felt that love is an illusion, women force you to concede. Even Romeo and Juliet, the "greatest love story on earth" ended in death- for what? for what is love worth?

Secondly, reason; love in today's sense is "eros"- that is to say, based off on something- maybe looks, maybe money, maybe connections- whatever it is, is that eros love depends on something else, but no thing in this world is permanent; the only permanence is change- our looks fade, our money decreases etc... Personally, I love only my God, Religion and my Country, but others seek solace elsewhere.

Thirdly, love (if it ever existed) seems to be dead- hendonism and a sexualised society has done that to a T. Why love when exposing your heart will end up in it being crushed? Everyone betrays you- humans are naturally selfish and egotistical- rather you looked out for yourself and no one else, without any of the excess baggage, and without any of the cost (more spending money on you!)

The problem arises with the emotions- what is needed is not emotional, animalistic notions that formulate "love", but reason- pure rationality. There is no love- it is dead, it is futile, it is weak. Reason and religious faith are stronger than "love"- LOVE IS A AN ILLUSION, the grandest one.

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Reply 1
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Reply 2
Original post by Anonymous


I've never had a relationship, or fallen in love.


How can you deny it then? Sounds like someone is bitter :rolleyes:
Reply 3
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Reply 4
Well I think your OP is vaguely pretentious. I agree that marriages for convienience, social expectation etc are a disaster. But true love exists, I have seen it- it is, however, rare.
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 5
Original post by Anonymous
So, I was walking home today, and I was thinking; love doesn't exist (by love I mean love between two humans). Think about relationships; you fall in love over looks.

Love does exist and you are attracted due to the other persons looks, you fall in love with their personality so yes love exists!
what is love, i dont even know what it is?
I feel like you don't really have a valid opinion since you have never had a relationship or been in love. How can you be an expert on something you have no real knowledge of?
Reply 8
i haven't experenciend love, yes, but what is love but emotions clouding our judgement? I use reason and logic alone.
Reply 9
Original post by Krack
Love does exist and you are attracted due to the other persons looks, you fall in love with their personality so yes love exists!


what a transient thing to fall in love over- looks fade and die- "the innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time"- read my entire post before giving pathetic answers please- I only want intelligent, rational and logical answers please
Reply 10
Original post by un-jardin-sur-le-nil
I feel like you don't really have a valid opinion since you have never had a relationship or been in love. How can you be an expert on something you have no real knowledge of?


I am not saying I'm an expert- you have given me this eptithet; and I give my opinion, because I can give an outside view of "love", without being clouded by raging hormones.
Reply 11
Original post by Anonymous
what a transient thing to fall in love over- looks fade and die- "the innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time"- read my entire post before giving pathetic answers please- I only want intelligent, rational and logical answers please

What are you on about? you can fall in love with a personality which negates the attractiveness of the other person by quite a fair bit as it is the personality, everyones looks fade over time and thus it is the personality that you fell in love for that keeps the relationship going.

You are frankly a pathetic individual if you cannot see that yourself and you have never been in a relationship so I find it laughable that you should be the one to tell me that my response is not intelligent, rational or logical! :colonhash:
Reply 12
Original post by Anonymous
...I've never had a relationship, or fallen in love, but I draw from invaluable sources- literature+ reason and experience...

Thirdly, love (if it ever existed) seems to be dead- hendonism and a sexualised society has done that to a T. Why love when exposing your heart will end up in it being crushed? Everyone betrays you- humans are naturally selfish and egotistical- rather you looked out for yourself and no one else, without any of the excess baggage, and without any of the cost (more spending money on you!)


So you're trying to disprove something you've never even felt yourself? Great going there.

I'm cynical about love, but my dad gives me hope. I don't find my Mum to be a very nice person, but he's been with her, what, 30+ years, and it's clear he completely, unconditionally loves her. She seems fed up with him, but that's probably his age and declining health (he's 80).

You say about risking your heart, but that's part of love, trusting someone and letting them into your world. There's a huge difference between ****ing someone just for sex, and 'making love' to them. Having sex with the girl I was seeing left me feeling nothing, or worse. Having sex with my girlfriend feels completely different, it makes me happy.

Love is an emotional, and they're not logic. The same way hating someone with a burning passion is completely illogical, so is genuinely loving someone. And if you haven't experience it, how can you demand we give you logical and reasoned examples?!
Original post by Anonymous
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I can tell you that love is real, as I am in love right now. But my guess is that's not enough description for you, so here you go:

1. There's platonic love that you feel for your friends, family, and pets (among other things). It is an emotion that attaches you to these beings, and the emotion makes you happy. These beings give you a connection and basically a reason to go about your day. They make you laugh, help you through rough patches in your life, and help you have fun. They are there for you when you need them. The thing about platonic love is that the connection is often entirely psychological. I think that your statement "love is an illusion" most applies to this kind of love.

2. There's maternal/paternal love. When a baby is born, a parent feels an instant connection to that baby and will do anything to protect it. They put the baby's life before their own and will do anything to make that baby happy and have a good life. They put in years of hard work and effort to ensure that their baby grows up in a safe and positive environment, and often the growing children don't show the appreciation that the parents deserve. Despite this, the parents continue to work hard because they want their baby to be happy. Again, this isn't a physical love, but it obviously exists.

3. And finally, there is romantic love - this seems to be the sort of "fleeting" love that you have described. I can tell you from experience that while I find the man I love physically attractive, there is more to it than that. The more I get to know the tiniest details of his personality (morals, ethics, quirks, nuances, etc.), the more attractive he becomes to me. This attraction is both physical and psychological. I want to spend the rest of my life with this person, as he compliments my own personality extremely well and not only brings out the best in me, but makes me want to be a better person myself. Believe me, I am not interested in my boyfriend for his money or connections (frankly, he has neither). I am not interested in him purely for his looks either, as I want to grow old with him. As cliched as it sounds, I want to spend as much time with this other human being as possible because when I am with him, I feel complete. There are obviously times when I do not like his decisions, much like the relationship between any two human beings (platonic or romantic). Despite this, I am willing to make sacrifices to make him happy, just as he is willing to do the same for me. When he is happy, I am happy. It makes my day to see him smile or experience something good in his life.

Romantic love is real, like it or not. Some people never find it, and those who do should cherish it because it is like nothing else in this world.

I would also like to comment on the paragraph in which you stated "You had dreams, ambitions and hopes- but your partner forces you to concede- first a little, then a bit more and then BAM! too far into the quagmire, no turning back- you've got 3 kids, a people carrier and podgy, whiny wife/beer-belly impotent husband". When you fall in love with your partner, you fall in love with their dreams, ambitions, and hopes. You wish for the best for them and desperately hope that they can find happiness through these desires, and you will do your best to make these desires a reality for your partner. However, there are some dreams that cannot be achieved due to a shift in priorities, and a good partner will be there for you as you transition in your life. It is not love when your partner forces you to give up on yourself, and while this happens to some people who have fallen out of love, it does not encompass all instances where people have fallen in love.

Lastly, the idea that "religious faith [is] stronger than love," is ignorant. I am no longer a religious person (I once was, but have become Agnostic) and have nothing against religion, however love and faith are very different concepts. Religion is impersonal, and faith is belief in specific ideals and a higher power, whereas love (platonic and romantic) is dedicated to beings on earth. They cannot and should not be compared.

I agree with Chillaxer when he says that OP seems vaguely pretentious. Having never been in love, you simply cannot claim that there is no such thing and that it only causes hurt. That is incredibly ignorant and frankly, childish.
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 14
just thought i'd say that i've been in an 18 year relationship, and i love every second of it # Me&Myself&I, thats all the loving i need B)
or perhaps your definition of love is different to everyone else's?
Reply 16
...Yeh, that's all a bunch of cynical nonsense. Trying to invoke "reason" to support your own nihilistic view which wants to reduce life to the bare essentials is ridiculous. You're taking a particularly extreme example of love's failure and then waving that up in order to try to make a point about all romantic love. That's not being clever or smart. It's simply trying to shoehorn everything into your youthful angst and cynicism so that everything fits the view that you believe is right, as a reaction against everyone putting the "power of love" above all else. Don't sully religion by claiming a perfectly valid form of love is "incompatible" because of your own blindness.

Humans are not naturally cynical and egotistical- certainly less so that in centuries past. Nothing has changed except social liberation, which perhaps has caused some hedonistic attitudes, but to write off the vast majority of people as cynical, egotistical and hedonistic is to draw attention to a small, vocal minority whose only crime is on the whole probably only to disagree with your views of what makes someone cynical, egotistical and hedonistic in the first place.

Literature does not support your view. The idea is laughable. You have shown two examples in opposition to many, many more which extol love- if you recall, Romeo and Juliet's love and death stopped a centuries-long feud between two families, for example.

Reason? Appealing to reason never works, as everybody simply twists their own "reason" to their bias. You say that all love is to do with temporal and transient properties. In case you haven't realised, that's not what love is. You ignore the fact that most would define love as a connection between two people; and if you are as religious as you claim, you would appreciate that the person, through the medium of the soul, is immortal and consequently intransigent. You are simply using a particularly extreme example of superficiality to try and describe all relationships, even when most are nothing like what you've described.

And how can you claim experience from solely negative examples of love, and no personal experience? I used to think like you- I was darkly cynical about the existence of eros. But I came to realise that I wanted it to be not true, so I could ignore that side of life entirely. Your over-cynicism will fade if you let it. You'll be much happier for it :smile:. Realism is a good trait to have, but cynicism is often not. I hope you get over it :smile:.
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by Anonymous


And then there arises the issue of marriage and children and your wife (guys). You had dreams, ambitions and hopes- but your partner forces you to concede- first a little, then a bit more and then BAM! too far into the quagmire, no turning back- you've got 3 kids, a people carrier and podgy, whiny wife/beer-belly impotent husband.


reminscient of the simpsons episode in which homer appears in taxicab conversations (especially the 'bam').

op will write uninspired poetry for girl that unenthusiastically grabs cocky at moderately rowdy hemingway appreciation club meeting.

hate ppl like op, so buhh-naahl 'n' confused.
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 18
Didn't you just contradict yourself by saying you love your religion? Before making judgments and assumptions I would suggest finding what you would call "Fake Love" and see how it goes from there... Plenty of people live till they're 80 holding the hand of their 50+ year soul mate.
Original post by Tufto
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Spot on. I especially liked that you commented on how laughable the idea that literature claimed that love caused damage and essentially did not exist. Great post.

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