[X] My Assistant

I don't know that a lot of people actually take the time and effort to really delve into the human psyche and think about the things that most consider common place. It's just part of the human experience, what further explanation is really needed?

I know that from a purely logical standpoint, love is unnecessary. Granted humans are social creatures so the feeling of love can be one that ensures some sort of bond with another person but it is unnecessary for the propagation of the species and it's advancement. I just want to see how people of all walks of life view the term "love".

Is it necessary for the object of your love to love you back, ie does unrequited love still count? Can you be in love with an idea or even an inanimate object? Is the person that claims to love a fictional character actually experiencing the sensation of love as we'd all typically view it or something so individual and foreign to people at large that misunderstanding and sometimes scorn is the only reaction we can muster? When can you be certain that the feeling you are experiencing is love and not something else? Can it really ever be truly quantified? Do you find it necessary as part of your own life?

At its core, love is affection plus attraction. Friendship plus lust. That's it for my take. For the rest of your question, it really depends. Textbook definitions are varied, from the sexual to the romantic to plain old attachment. So I guess yeah, you can love an inanimate object, if you are so inclined It is as simple to quantify as other complex human emotions, which is to say not very. Nothing mystical in it at all, though. You're over-thinking it I would say. Do I need love by my own definition? I would say it is dangerous and would like to have nothing to do with it, but that is me, quite cynical on this topic in particular. The reasons include a probable lack of success, abysmal skill and paranoia on my part, and a general fear of dependence.

This post has been edited by DarkDespair5: Jan 1 2012, 12:58

From my perspective love is affectation that requires trust and understanding between the person who loves and the other person being loved. Unrequited love is in fact of point nothing more than admiration of that thing to a point where it is attraction in a simple form.
I suppose being the type of person I am while I do love my wife and partner in equal amounts it is not so much love as it is a mutual need for the routine we have established over the course of years being together. I was raised in what you would call a cold environment so love for me is something akin to unknown territory because I was never shown what true love or the emotions behind what love is supposed to be and have as a result become somewhat distant even though I know I couldn't live without the people I have around me right now.
Damn, that doesn't make a lot of sense does it?

From my perspective love is affectation that requires trust and understanding between the person who loves and the other person being loved. Unrequited love is in fact of point nothing more than admiration of that thing to a point where it is attraction in a simple form.

Quoted for Truth.

I suppose being the type of person I am while I do love my wife and partner in equal amounts it is not so much love as it is a mutual need for the routine we have established over the course of years being together.

Indeed, I'd say that doesn't sound very fitting. It's very understandable given your upbringing, but I don't think that a mere symbiosis of circumstance constitutes love. That's just me, though. *shrug

For me, love is a combined sense of trust, security, appreciation and delight of contact with another person. It stays around for years - in my case after more than 10 years it only grew stronger, and I only see the person once a month now, not daily, and she's with someone else. Such love doesn't have to have any sexual undertones - I can imagine loving any member of my family in that way (only I don't, they're rather plain people). I admire the person, I adore her, I feel great when I can communicate or fence words with her, I greatly enjoy fulfilling her desires, for example buying her something she wants, as then her reactions give me incomparably more valuable joy, and I try not to bother her too much.

Is it necessary for the object of your love to love you back, ie does unrequited love still count?

The object of my love doesn't have to love me back - in fact, I daresay that I can't see whether someone loves me back or not. It might be that someone loves me, I see that someone for years, and I've been told by that person I'm loved, but I can't still see or feel it in any way. On the other hand, the person doesn't have to love me, but multitude of completely unrelated gestures she makes in her daily life may lead me to believe I'm appreciated and loved.

Come to think of it, perhaps it's necessary for me to feel I'm loved. That's completely different thing from someone loving me back. In my case I may be falsely feeling I'm loved. My mind may be wired to interpret things she does as signs of her loving me, while in fact she thinks of me only as a friend, just by coincidence. Anyway, even when she chooses another, every contact, even simple conversation with her makes me feel happy. Perhaps that's because non-verbal signs falsely communicate to me I'm loved. Still... I care about being happy, and everyone being happy is a perfect solution.

Curiously, in many novels unrequited love results in some kind of suffering. I don't get it at all. I might suffer if there was no one in the world like her, or if I've never met her, because I wouldn't be able to imagine her, but since I have met her, and know and remember her, and she's alive and happy, what is there to suffer from?

Can you be in love with an idea or even an inanimate object?

You can internalize an idea so that it becomes part of your internal universe, and in that sense be in love with it as part of you, or love of yourself. For more than a year I might say I was in love with anime - but that came around along with a large group of people who watched anime, and who taught me much about life, so it might have been love of their company. Still, I remember when I was happy at the university, or at work, because I knew that almost no matter what happened, I would be home at some point, and I would watch anime. But that might have been more of an infatuation, as it left me relatively fast and with no trace.

Is the person that claims to love a fictional character actually experiencing the sensation of love as we'd all typically view it or something so individual and foreign to people at large that misunderstanding and sometimes scorn is the only reaction we can muster?

I think the person could love such a character, that is, could love the representation of that character in his mind, the extension of what's been shown through the fiction. Could feel better after having been shown consistent representation of such a character, and becoming aware that such a person could exist in the world, up to then populated by only less interesting specimens. Misunderstanding and scorn is just something that tells us whom to exclude from our private world and disregard in future life.

When can you be certain that the feeling you are experiencing is love and not something else?

You can't. There is no non-arbitrary definition. What I give is mine, with no guarantee that every other homo sapiens is even wired to feel it. The word is actually frightfully misused and burdened with so many meanings that I think of commercials every time I hear it. I tried to define it, but I'd avoid using it in any sentence to which I'd want to give even a modicum of clarity.

Can it really ever be truly quantified?

I don't think so. It can't even be defined. It's an ultimate picklock word, sneaky and cameleonish.

Do you find it necessary as part of your own life?

I remember daily contact with the person I love has made me happy, has made me feel I'm in the right place at the right time, that there's nothing more I need to strive for, and I can just play with my environment. This feeling has kept for years after I could no longer contact her daily, but it's diminishing with time. So yes, it's necessary as part of my life as it makes me feel alive and not just existing, but it's easy to break, so I wouldn't do everything to get it.

(This tirade may not have anything to do with the topic, maybe? But it does have a simple underlying theme, and I'm sure even the most simple mind can understand what I'm trying to get across.)

I love everyone that I converse with regularly, lest I'd have no reason to do so.

As such, many of the people on this forum I love in some way. I love them so much that their substantial failures hurt me, their true ignorance disappoints me, and their real triumphs make me proud and their abject rejection depresses me to such a point that it just makes me want to quit doing anything.

Is this a bad thing? Hardly. It's how I treat the people I live with, and around, and have known for years. Yes it may be brash, or unnecessarily vitriolic at times, but that's how my sense of humor works. I find the comedy in the bleak and miserable. That's why everything is "the worst" or "terrible". You people are one of the reasons I made my podcast. I communicate to you all the same way I've spoken to my best friend of almost 10 years, now. Just as an example, Rob's self-exile crushed me the same way that the aforementioned friend's absence in my daily life did. It feels like I'm alone in this familiar place, now. To the point that it seems like no one gives a shit about anything I say. Not that I can blame any of you, considering the verbiage and attitude I carry around with me, I can understand the reticence or downright loathing, but it sucks, and I'm here because I have nowhere else to fit in and I love all of you, and I couldn't be happier for the fact that you are all very, very important to me.

So you're stuck with me. Deal with it.

It's surprising to me how almost everyone describes love as a really good feeling, if not the best. I experience it as a very bad feeling that I want to get rid of. I really hate it; it's like you're drunk, but you just know you're gonna feel real bad after it.
Heck... perhaps I don't even know what true love is and never will. An emotionally impaired sob, I am.

This post has been edited by Lolicon_of_Sin: Jan 1 2012, 20:20

@radixius: I can't help thinking that if you focused more on loving yourself, and remembering you always have yourself, actions of those around you wouldn't have the same crushing impact. But I also realize that the words I use to convey what I mean rarely seem to have gone across undistorted when you comment on them, as if our underlying models of life were too different (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

It's surprising to me how almost everyone describes love as a really good feeling, if not the best. I experience it as a very bad feeling that I want to get rid of. I really hate it; it's like you're drunk, but you just know you're gonna feel real bad after it.

The secret is to:
1) separate thinking about how you're gonna feel from how you do feel, in order not to let the first spoil the second,
2) try to remember the good feeling, often return to it, remind yourself about it,
3) try not to dwell on the bad memories and mentally change the subject when you notice you're on them.

And actually, I don't feel real bad about it. Why do you? I only get the good memories to remember later...

The real love is just an unexplainable thing, there aren't enough words or a coherent reason to explain that feeling because it is just that, a thing that only you can feel (doesn't matter how much you try to express it).

And is also why doesn't matter who's the reciever of your love or even if you become crazy for that love in the end the only thing that matters is that you could feel that sensation.

Love isn't reserved for just for the few, everybody loves someone or something (real or fiction), because (by experience) if a person can't feel (or experience it) love (either towards someone/thing o from someone/thing) your spirit lost strenght and your life lacks of sense.

This post has been edited by aleko90: Jan 2 2012, 12:25

I really hate it; it's like you're drunk, but you just know you're gonna feel real bad after it.

That is the perfect metaphor, you've hit the nail squarely on the head. Your cognitive faculties just SHUT DOWN, it's like you are on autopilot. I don't want this to happen, ever. It's a gigantic fucking weakness you can sneak a carrier through. It teases your imagination with ludicrous fantasies of every type that juuuust possibly may be true if you really really want it (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) , and warps your perception of everything.

@DZ: I know exactly where LoS is coming from, because the same thing happens to me. You see, my mind works to try to make regret as unlikely as possible. Hedge my bets, not maximize pleasure or minimize pain, but rather ensure some of the former and little of the latter. Playing probabilities on something that is illogical is about as irrational as expecting to win money in a casino. Sure, it happens sometimes, but Lady Luck favors the house. Many people simply enjoy the thrill of winning and losing in the flashy lights. Love is similar, but its thrall is much more deadly because you don't know if you've won until you've put a significant emotional, physical and monetary investment and you're at a -6 penalty to sense motive in that state. Thing is, you're right -- if you can enjoy the good and throw away the bad, you can walk all over the emotional challenges and have the upper hand in more serious relationship problems. Hell, you could easily end up with a net gain!
An emotional rollercoaster is only worth the thrillride if you can flatten the dips and valleys.

This post has been edited by DarkDespair5: Jan 2 2012, 13:20

@radixius: I can't help thinking that if you focused more on loving yourself, and remembering you always have yourself, actions of those around you wouldn't have the same crushing impact. But I also realize that the words I use to convey what I mean rarely seem to have gone across undistorted when you comment on them, as if our underlying models of life were too different (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

What I do, barring very few things, doesn't matter to me, therefore, it will never make me happy. As such, I don't really focus on myself. It's just not who I am, and changing that would vastly shift the paradigm of what makes me who I am.

It really doesn't seem worth such a drastic action, all things considered.

It's just a chemical reaction. But so is happiness, and that's our primary motivation for living. Just remember: there's about 3.5 billion people of the opposite gender, if she/he doesn't love you back, don't kill yourself over it — there's plenty of fish in the sea.

From my perspective love is affectation that requires trust and understanding between the person who loves and the other person being loved.

This.

The real love is just an unexplainable thing, there aren't enough words or a coherent reason to explain that feeling because it is just that, a thing that only you can feel (doesn't matter how much you try to express it).

This, too. It's just something in nature, I suppose.

This post has been edited by Tenseigamoon: Jun 1 2012, 22:29

You see, my mind works to try to make regret as unlikely as possible. Hedge my bets, not maximize pleasure or minimize pain, but rather ensure some of the former and little of the latter. Playing probabilities on something that is illogical is about as irrational as expecting to win money in a casino. Sure, it happens sometimes, but Lady Luck favors the house. Many people simply enjoy the thrill of winning and losing in the flashy lights.

So, you're trying to avoid feeling regret by avoiding doing things that make you feel regret. It seems to me that a simpler method it to become convinced that whatever you do, it's the result of who you are, that there's nothing you, being you, could have done otherwise, and that whatever happened will never change because of your feelings. At least it works for me - I don't regret anything, because I *know*, *feel* that dwelling on regret is a waste of time.

Love is similar, but its thrall is much more deadly because you don't know if you've won until you've put a significant emotional, physical and monetary investment and you're at a -6 penalty to sense motive in that state. Thing is, you're right -- if you can enjoy the good and throw away the bad, you can walk all over the emotional challenges and have the upper hand in more serious relationship problems. Hell, you could easily end up with a net gain!
An emotional rollercoaster is only worth the thrillride if you can flatten the dips and valleys.

But you never win or lose in that sense, as there's always change that eventually blurs the love unrecognizably. Or, if you've been lucky to feel love, that alone is a gain, and you'll remember it for the rest of your life. What is there to lose?
If I'm in the presence of the person I love, I look at her, I listen to her, I enjoy her presence, that's the only thing that's real. Trying to affect her to change her life into being somehow exclusive to you is a change that may break what's been making her loved by you in the first place. There's nothing to win there, but so many people become convinced that love is somehow connected to relationship or dependent on it, that they try to win affection, or worry about losing something, and become jealous. Jealous people become annoying to the person they love, and no more moments of love happen. They poison their temporary capacity to feel it themselves, within them. No events need to occur for love to be lost. Events that do occur, like loved person being with someone else do not have to kill love, if you know what feelings and thoughts to nurture inside yourself. You can be happy seeing her happy, and realize she's happy in large part because she's with someone else - if you stopped thinking of other people as your property, as children do.

What I do, barring very few things, doesn't matter to me, therefore, it will never make me happy.

What you are is not what you do though. It's also what you would have done, how you feel, how you make yourself feel, what you remember and how you remember things. Have you studied yourself as you would other people? With curiosity?

As such, I don't really focus on myself. It's just not who I am, and changing that would vastly shift the paradigm of what makes me who I am.

Can't really argue with that.

It really doesn't seem worth such a drastic action, all things considered.

What is there to lose?

What is there to lose?

What little self-respect I still have, dear.

Like many human feelings and emotions. If you ask an old couple a question about love, you'll probably get an unsatisfying answer full of EXAMPLES.

Albeit good examples but still. It isn't a good description of what love itself is.

And that's why they are called feelings. They simply cannot really be explained. Only experienced.



Although, there are chemicals in play for each emotion you feel that can be explained away with science, but this doesn't exactly allow a person to understand it simply because they've done scientific research on it. You just know what physically happens inside of your own body.

Indeed, love is just someone that you feel and that's about it. And sadly... even love may be just a temporary feeling that cannot be felt all of the time.

Falling our of love seems way too damn easy. Even for people who you thought would never break.


Even unconditional love in families can break apart under the right conditions. And the Westermark Effect sometimes fails.

This post has been edited by 3dpd_lover: Mar 15 2012, 05:03

Love in the English language is complex and has several meanings for this short word. At times it can be difficult to explain and others times can be simple. Instead of hate, it is the opposite, and shows more feeling than like. From the ranges of hate, dislike, like and love, it’s how we express ourselves or how we may view things in our lives. But leave it to the Greeks to define the types of love.

[en.wikipedia.org] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love

Posting a link to the wiki entry on love is a stupid thing to do.

But the wiki Article covers a lot of information, and it saves us from having to post various Bits from it here. You have to aDmit it's at least mildly useful.

Of course, aNy of us could've just gotten To the page ourselves =/

Hmmm...Unless you can effectively operationally define love, no one will ever truly be able to give a good Response. That can be said for anything intangible, though. Maybe instead of asking "what is love", we should ask "why is love important?" Every time this question comes up, there is inevitably a reference to haddaway, but if we phrase it like that, the jokes are avoided and it will open people up to a different focus on the topic.



so i ask you guys, instead of trying to answer 'what is love', try and think about why love is important to you, your friends, your family, and anyone you happen to care about.

But the wiki Article covers a lot of information, and it saves us from having to post various Bits from it here. You have to aDmit it's at least mildly useful.

In this situation, regurgitating information from the internet is about as useful as a a knife with no blade.

so i ask you guys, instead of trying to answer 'what is love', try and think about why love is important to you, your friends, your family, and anyone you happen to care about.

Love isn't important to me and I'm enough of an asshole to not really give a damn why its important to other people. I just accept it as an amorphous thing -- maybe its emotional, maybe its biological -- that does stuff sometimes.