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Re: True Love
Fri, May 5, 2006 - 5:52 AMTrue love is the romantic idea of a complete connection to someone who isn't your blood. It's sexual and spiritual and lots of other 'uals'. This person is essential to your being since essentially they are a part of you You would die for this person and they would for you too. Ideally I think it also needs to be everlasting but maybe true love is only temporal. I'm not sure. I suppose its heavily connected with the idea of having a 'soul mate' too. A prime example of true love from literature would be Romeo and Juliet.
Anyways I've been in a few relationships, long and short. I've enjoyed most of them most of the time. I've had good sex and great adventures in life but I've never really felt true love with anyone. SO DOES THAT SHIT EXIST OR NOT? -
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Unsu...
Re: True Love
Sun, May 7, 2006 - 8:20 AMokay...
I was kinda joking with my prior post - and kinda wondering what the question really was.
The unfortunate (sometimes) truth is that yes, true love does exist - in my life, at least.
I had also been in a few relationships long and short, and had even been married to and had a child with one particular man I thought I loved at the time - but what I found was that the feeling of "love" always went away at some point, which led me to wonder if it was even love at all.
Then I met......this guy.
24 years ago.
It was a completely different thing than I'd ever experienced before, right from the start.
We had an extremely intense connection from our first eye contact, and although the intensity of it ebbs and flows, the love remains constant no matter what.
We lived together for several years, then were married for 12 years, then got divorced a year ago.....we've been through a whole helluva lot of stuff together and apart, and are still trying to figure out what to do with this love thing.
Yes, it does feel like this person is essential to my being, is part of me, and he told me the last time he saw me that it felt like he was finally reunited with a part of his body he'd been missing. The unfortunate part of this is that even when there is true, undeniable love, sometimes there are also "issues" that stand in the way of two people actually being together.
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Re: True Love
Sun, May 7, 2006 - 7:30 PMthat all depends on how you define "true love"....but generally speaking, i'd say yes i believe in it.
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Re: True Love
Tue, May 9, 2006 - 11:19 AMSure, but that presumes there's also fake love. Right? -
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Unsu...
Re: True Love
Tue, May 9, 2006 - 1:52 PMwell...you got yer infatuation, you got yer lust (both often mistaken for love).......the "test" of true love, I believe, is time. -
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Re: True Love
Tue, May 9, 2006 - 5:18 PMis reciprocity a requirement of true love? -
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Unsu...
Re: True Love
Tue, May 9, 2006 - 5:29 PMI would say yes - I would say it's an energy that flows both ways and doesn't leave one person empty -
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Re: True Love
Tue, May 9, 2006 - 11:08 PMFor sure reciprocity is a requirement of true love. Without this it would be unrequited love I believe unrequited love can be strong and hurt like hell but it can't be considered true love because there is never that initial connection which has to be a two sided thing.
In reply to the 'Fake Love' thing I think that shit definately exists. It exists in relationships where people stay together 'for the sake of the kids' or because its comfortable or easier. You might think this is cynical but I reckon that the majority of couples share very little love after a few years together and basically stay together because they don't know what else to do. And if there happy then thats cool. I guess I'm just bitter because I was in that type of comfortable relationship myself until my partner had the balls to call bullshit on it, but I'm glad she did. I think heaps of people settle for the relationships there in rather than striving for true love.
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Re: True Love
Wed, May 10, 2006 - 3:44 PMI disagree about reciprocity. I don't believe two-sided love makes more of a "real connection." Connections are always imaginary. Sometimes there's only one person imagining a connection. Sometimes there are two. I wouldn't call that reciprocal. I'd just call it two people projecting their ego ideals onto their love object at the same time. -
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Re: True Love
Thu, May 11, 2006 - 1:55 AMHey JM, I disagree with you that 'connections are always imaginary'. For example I see a hot person in the street and imagine having sex with them or daydream about having a relationship with them. Thats an imaginary connection because its all in my own head. They don't even realise I exist.
Now lets say I've been in a relationship with someone for five years. I connect with them through sex, through conversation, through understanding, through caring, through love. I don't think you can call this an imaginary connection.
You are physically and emotionally connected to this person. If theres only an imagined connection then how can their actions have such a strong effect on you -
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: True Love
Wed, May 17, 2006 - 8:31 AMHmm. I say all connections are imaginary simply because we can never know another person, no matter how much sex, conversation, understanding, caring, and love we have or feel with or for them.
We can only imagine them.
I guess I should have said: "All people are imaginary (for us)." -
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Re: True Love
Sun, May 21, 2006 - 5:08 AMOkay dude, I've tried really hard to understand what you are saying but I don't. You say "we can never know another person". I agree that we can never know another person COMPLETELY but you can definately know another person to an extent. I think most people have experienced when we know what a friend or partner is thinking just by looking at them or when we are able to predict the actions of the same. Isn't this an example of knowing someone?
I think you are saying that "All people are imaginary (for us)" because everything outside of our own body is subject to our own perception but I don't see how this makes it "imaginary". Your statement would make more sense to me if you said other peoples minds are imaginary for us but even then, because we can know peole to an extent, I think they are not completely imagined by us.
If my mums imaginary then how come I'm here today? -
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Re: True Love
Sun, May 21, 2006 - 12:58 PMSo.
Is being able to predict someone's actions the same thing as knowing them?
Is knowing what a person is thinking about the same as knowing their thoughts? -
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Re: True Love
Mon, May 22, 2006 - 1:03 AMerrrrrrrr.......
"Is being able to predict someone's actions the same thing as knowing them?" Well yes it is to an extent. I'm not saying it means you know this person completely but for sure it means you know them better, or know more of them, than a stranger.
"Is knowing what a person is thinking about the same as knowing their thoughts?" No it isn't. Luckily we can't see other peoples thoughts. But it is another example of knowing an aspect of someone.
Sorry, I feel like I'm repeating myself a bit. I guess what I really take issue with is the idea of people being imaginary to us. Does this mean that the whole physical world is imaginary aswell? I'm trying to grasp the idea of not knowing any other person but I cant get my head around it. Hell, then again, sometimes I feel like I don't even know myself that well. -
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Re: True Love
Mon, May 22, 2006 - 6:21 AMAll I'm saying is, the only thing we have to work with in life is our own (obviously biased) PERCEPTIONS of things.
That isn't to say the people and things themselves don't exist. It means that for us, they exist only as we imagine them.
So, no, you don't know your mother, spouse, pet, boss, or child. You only know your perceptions of them.
And your perceptions are ALL about projection.
So, it's all YOU, Nicko, everything, all the time. Which means you're ALONE.
ALL ALONE.
Have a nice day! -
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Re: True Love
Tue, May 23, 2006 - 12:43 AMAAAAhhhhhhhhh
ALONE? All alone forever? I can't stand being alone. Please say it ain't so.
JM I do understand what you are saying. I agree that my reality is based entirely on my perceptions of things. BUT these perceptions are atleast partly based on the reality of the many things that exist outside of myself. Otherwise I would be living in a dream world where the actions of other people and situations and objects had no effect on me.Oh hang on my phones ringing. It's my friend calling.............but I guess theres no point in answering it since they are only imaginary?
It's the use of "imaginary" that I just can't take. I do take your point. But lets say if I hug my friend. I agree that I am only experiencing there presence using my senses; touch, sight, smell etc and that these are all completely subject to my own perception but this means I am onlt imaging them? No that doesn't sit with me. They have there own unchanging reality which is not subject to my perception.
Pick holes in that one if you can still be bothered! -
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Re: True Love
Tue, May 23, 2006 - 4:31 AMWell, yeah. You are physically hugging your friend (at least, you think you are, if you trust your senses).
But what does that hug mean to you?
What does it mean to him?
Isn't its significance what's important about the hug, and not the hug itself?
And isn't that significance always your own construction, based completely on the projection of your own desires and needs?
And don't your own desires and needs also determine the way the hug feels, looks, and smells?
Yeah, of course - I totally agree with you that your friend has his own reality outside yours. If you don't believe that, you're psychopathic, or at least autistic.
But you're still alone, because those realities can only mesh in your imagination...
And if the meshing of reality is what you're calling love, then.... yep... it's all in your mind!
Do you care if love is imaginary?
I wouldn't.
Because It feels great. -
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Re: True Love
Wed, May 24, 2006 - 1:21 AMYeah now I'm getting it. It does feel great doesn't it. I think my main problem was with the connotations of the word imaginary, somehow cheapening and trivialising what I was feeling, but now you put it like that I feel much happier. Good talking to you JM, you've expanded my mind almost as much as my last trip
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Re: True Love
Thu, May 11, 2006 - 2:05 AMIs there such a thing as true love?
Sorry but that's a really a dumb question. And it's also the wrong question to ask.
Either there is true love or my 70 year old grandfather--who now has to feed, clean after, care for, bathe, and entertain my invalid 70 year old grandmother--is deluding himself into thinking he loves her. My grandmother had a stroke a few years back and she's totally dependent on my grandfather who was her high school sweetheart. My grandfather's life now revolves a making my grandmother's life more comfortable. So either he truly loves her or what.... he's doing it out of some misplaced sense of duty.
Of course there's such a thing as true love or else there wouldn't be some many damn people writing about it for the last 2000 years. Of course there's true love or there's an awful lot of delusional people just fooling themselves into thinking they're in love.
Maybe a better question is: Is there true love for you? And honestly, there may not be. You might just be one of those people who's going to end up growing wrinkled, sagging and bitter, either alone or in some loveless relationship that you're just literally dying to get out of.
However, I also think the true love for me is a totally useless question. Is there true love for me? Who really knows the answer to that. You'll find out eventually. If you're on your deathbed and you haven't found true love then the answer is no. Maybe in the next life.
So what's the right question? It's really an easy question: Should I choose to believe that there's true love for me?
Basically, it's a simple yes or no answer. Yes, I should believe there's a true love for me. Or no, I don't believe there's true love for me.
So which one will you choose?
Personally, I would go with yes. If you believe that there's true love for you. Then the next step is finding it. Otherwise, there's the alternative. NO, I don't believe in true love for me. Then you'll end up looking for a person that you can just put up with when you and your other inevitably fall out of love. All the while, you'll be looking at the people who've been married and happy for 40+ years, telling yourself that all those people just don't have anywhere better to go.
Even if you decide no, I'll believe there's true love for you. Why? Because if I believe in true love for myself, I have to believe that there's true love for others. It's kind of an all or nothing deal.
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Re: True Love
Thu, June 8, 2006 - 10:39 AMI don't think there is one end all be all when it comes to love. People do have different styles when it comes to loving.
It is true though that there are certain relationbships that do leave us feeling more fulfilled & balanced than others...so...if you pick the best relationship of your life to represent true love, it is possible....
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Re: True Love
Fri, June 9, 2006 - 3:46 PMIncreasingly, I think that romantic love, including true love is not a purer form of anything, but a combination of two other things.
The two things are:
1) A singular erotic fixation; effectively, a fetish for a collection of physical and/or personality attributes characterizing only one known person.
AND
2) A sense of fatal loyalty which is greater than the erotic impulse; in effect, an ethical valuation of the object person's well-being as higher than one's own.
