How do you see love?

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alexandra93

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Hello people! ​
I wonder... How do you see love between a man and a woman? What is the essence of love, in your opinion? What is the role of a man in a relationship and what is the role of a woman? And what is the ultimate goal of their love?​
Can you imagine a world where every couple has a relationship based on true love? How would that world be? Will everything change in the world because of that? Will this world be a better place because of that?​
Do you think that we, loners, can also play a role in that, by staying positive and never losing hope?​
How should we see love? It's a burning question of mine... I think we can change the world. Something tells me love is like a puzzle, we must put the pieces back together. Every second counts. Let's make the best of it. Let's live as if we already found our soulmates. They are out there somewhere, even if we might never meet them personally. We love them even though we never knew them. When we suffer, when  miss something we cannot explain.... it's them whom we miss. And that pain is bitter-sweet. We are capable of love and that's what matters in the end.​
 
Hi Alexandra,

I agree with so much of what you say. As I see it, as human beings we are all flawed in some way and one of the commonest flaws is to prioritise other things over love. Money, image, position, you name it. In reality, love is the only treasure. I mean this in the platonic, not romantic sense. If people just had the same basic level of love and respect for each other, society would be a better place and so many lives would be improved or even saved.

As for romantic love and the roles of two people in a relationship, it really depends on the couple. I don't think it's healthy to say that the wife stays home and cooks while the man works, and all of that old fashioned stuff. In truth, modern life and modern love mean that things are much more fluid and that within a relationship the roles can be very happily shifted around to suit each other. What matters is to love, cherish and support each other.

As for being a loner or being single etc, that in no way diminishes a person or their place in the world. There are plenty of positives in the single life, these days I'm married with responsibilities and I look back on my single time and often wish I could go back to that freedom. I don't mean that the relationship is bad in any way, it is just true that marriage and a home etc are things that take priority these days for me.

How to love as a single person? Well having love within you is a good sign of cultivation of character, if that saying makes sense. Having a positive attitude and having a sense of love and goodwill towards the world and other people is a real blessing and I think it can help people to understand their own value.

I hope what I'm saying makes sense, just trying to put my own thoughts down in writing.
 
Initial romantic love, termed the Honeymoon Phase, between any two people is a chemical reaction in order to propagate the species. After that period people find out if they can go the distance or not. If they can they start to form a much more lasting but less intense love that just might allow them to stay together for a long time.

The role of a man, in today's world in regards to love, is to keep his mate happy and believing that he love's her even more then during the highest points of their relationship and keep her believing that he needs her, she is special, and sexy. But, he also has to give her space, respect, and appreciation. It's all way too much work. All he really wants to do when coming home from work is to have a nice dinner, a few drinks, pat the kids and the dogs on the head, bang his woman, take a shower, and go to bed. But, no, instead he has to do all the other crap and talk to his woman in hopes she is finally in the mood for sex. **** really, another "headache!" Crap!

The role of a woman is to keep her man happy by making him feel as if he's in charge, is a fantastic lover, super smart, handsome, and handy. It's too much work for her too. She just want's to sip some wine after getting the kids tucked in bed and read a romantic novel while her man massages her feet. Then she wants her man to romance her like in the novels she's readings and spend time on her down below while avoid getting banged again. I think two women make a way better couple in today's world. Two guys are better off too just boning each other because that's all they really want. It's mush less work, although, I can't bring myself to partake in that. Unfortunately I'm a man and only attracted to women. Aren't you women feeling lucky about that.

Hmmm, the loners role in love......... I guess we can just keep up the illusion that love is a wonderful thing while it's unobtainable to us. Hopefully this will help convince the non-loners to seek it out and stay together after having kids in order to better raise them into responsible tax payers to pay for our retirements.

You went nuts on the last part of your post. The writing comes across as the ramblings of a love sick romantic. I suggest poetry.
 
"Romantic" love is a conditional type of love and supported (at least in the initial phases) by the release of intoxicating hormones and usually lustful feelings.

Unconditional love is the type of love you can feel for your pet, child, parent. I think, personally, that's probably the "truest" love. You can know you'll love your dog/child no matter what until death do you apart, but when you think or promise you'll love your romantic partner until death does you apart it's just an illusion most of the times.
 
I have to say I find the above two posts a little bit too dry to accept. I realise love isn't a bed of roses 100% of the time, it would hardly be worthwhile if it were easy. There really are happy people in loving relationships, it's not just a blanket case of early hormones and then trying to keep the thing going. There really are relationships where people cherish each other, not every relationship can be broken down into scientific chunks and pulled apart.

Love would hardly be worth anything if it were a science.
 
^ Yeah and Santa Claus is real too. People stay together because they need something from one another. Kids usually are a good enough trap. Finances, hormones, mental illness, and various other things work too. Usually if there is no reason to stay together people separate. People may appear to cherish each other from the outside but it's may very well be completely different inside. Mostly love is something used to sell crap.
 
Finished, I promise that love is not like that. The whole point of love is that it is above those kinds of things, anything manipulative etc is completely mislabelled if it's being called love.

Love is a value and a feeling, rather than a tool to be used in some way.
 
Yeti1980 said:
Finished, I promise that love is not like that. The whole point of love is that it is above those kinds of things, anything manipulative etc is completely mislabelled if it's being called love.

Love is a value and a feeling, rather than a tool to be used in some way.

That's why I don't see the thing our culture calls "true love" as true love.
For example, you'll want the best for someone you honestly love, such as your child or your dog. You don't want the best for your " soulmate", "life partner", "true love", or whatever you want to call it. For example there's lots of jealousy and possessiveness in monogamous relationships. People get angry when their "true love" engages in sexual behaviour with another person and might even dump them for doing something enjoyable without them. What our culture sees as "true love"  is not unconditional or forever. You need to keep up your appearance, appease your partner,  give them sex, ... you must put in something for being loved. Romantic love is about getting something from and giving something in return to the other person and is therefore conditional. Many types of human relationships (incl. friendships) are like that. What people call true love is not unconditional love. Unconditional is the love for your grandparent, grandchild, dog, cat, ... where you don't expect them to give something to you. That, in my opinion is true love.

Also, it makes no sense that ones "life partner" or "true love" always happens to be someone of the preferred sex, unless the sexual feelings felt toward that "true love" and "soulmate"  were the vital component in that love. Otherwise you would feel romantic toward an 80 year old lady, a 5 year old kid, your best friend of the same sex. 
We are rewarded by our biological system for engaging in procreational behaviour. There doesn't need to be a deep and virtuous component to it like movies and songs come up with. I think the need to see it like that is linked to relgious influences on our culture.
 
Hi Myra,

What strikes me most about what you wrote above is the last few lines, eg procreational behaviour, no deep and virtuous component etc. The whole point about love is that it is one of the greatest things that makes us human, one of the problems with society is to see ourselves as biological robots. That kind of thinking cuts out the possibility of love in it's truest sense.

As human beings, we live our best lives when we love and respect each other, and when we have that respect and affection for animals, culture etc etc. You might say that all things are pointless without the central value of love. Whether it's your neighbour or a tropical bird, it is fulfilling to be able to appreciate it and feel a sense of affection for it. It's an important central chunk of ourselves, life loses a lot of it's colour and joy when we lose sight of love.

The above sense of love and appreciation ties in with romantic love as part of a recipe that makes up a happy romantic relationship. Yes, attractions are based partly on instinct and so on, but general love helps to feed romantic love and acts as a kind of umpire in a relationship. Do I always get on with my wife? No, we sometimes disagree about things. Do I ever stop loving her? No. Do we have a mutual, loving respect for each other that helps us smooth out the bumps? Yes.

Just to be clear, I'm not religious. What I'm talking about isn't tied in to some kind of spiritual preconception, it's just about living our best and fullest lives.
 
Yeti1980 said:
Finished, I promise that love is not like that. The whole point of love is that it is above those kinds of things, anything manipulative etc is completely mislabelled if it's being called love.

Love is a value and a feeling, rather than a tool to be used in some way.

Come back and comment after you get more of life's experiences. Although, I can say that I love pizza. Even if it doesn't love me back and sometimes doesn't taste as good as it should. I will stick with it through thick and thin, saucy or not so much, and even with light and dark spots.

I've spent a lot of time a round married couples of 30+ years. Although they say they love each other what they really mean is that they don't want to be alone. Being together has become normal and habitual. It's not the love that they have for each other. It's surprising how they react when they get separated. It becomes 100% about them and their well being. The other person no longer matters.
 
Hi Finished,

I have plenty of life's experience, I'm in my 40's with a previous major relationship behind me. It still doesn't affect my view on love, romantic or otherwise.

I'm sorry that the relationships you have seen have seemingly turned out the way they have, just occasionally that can happen but it shouldn't be accepted as the general rule.

Giving an example very close to home, my parents are in their 80's and have been married 60 years. They still love each other like a pair of teenagers, they are quite a pairing. They are not alone, I know a number of couples who've stayed together and been very happy, the idea that relationships are purely based on neediness and sex is just too shallow for me to accept. Yes, it happens, but then perhaps the relationship isn't happy because it's not based in the proper footing.
 
Yeti1980 said:
Hi Myra,

What strikes me most about what you wrote above is the last few lines, eg procreational behaviour, no deep and virtuous component etc. The whole point about love is that it is one of the greatest things that makes us human, one of the problems with society is to see ourselves as biological robots. That kind of thinking cuts out the possibility of love in it's truest sense.

As human beings, we live our best lives when we love and respect each other, and when we have that respect and affection for animals, culture etc etc. You might say that all things are pointless without the central value of love. Whether it's your neighbour or a tropical bird, it is fulfilling to be able to appreciate it and feel a sense of affection for it. It's an important central chunk of ourselves, life loses a lot of it's colour and joy when we lose sight of love.

 Do I always get on with my wife? No, we sometimes disagree about things. Do I ever stop loving her? No. Do we have a mutual, loving respect for each other that helps us smooth out the bumps? Yes.
As humans we're social animals so it would be abnormal and in the distant past had been fatal to not bond with the members of our tribe (which nowadays is mostly a nuclear family  or is a long term monogamous couple) or to walk away every time there's disagreement. Of course you will have bonded with your wife after years of living together. I believe you can have that type of friendly love or bond with anyone though and our culture just has normalized nuclear families and hyped up long term romantic partnership and therefore as adults the person we bond with is a "romantic partner" even though we might want to switch sexual partners (as would be more natural because we're not a monogamous species) or could have deep meaningful bonds with people we don't have sex with. The whole romantic idea around it is imbedded in our culture and social structures and people just follow it because we're social animals and follow the established social orders.

 Sure it's a behaviour maybe only present in humans to be able to surpress our true sexual wants, smile at our colleague whom we hate or to cherish the beauty of a tropical bird and therefore place it in a cage. I don't think humans are full of love. You think we are special because we're lovely? Look at how many species we are extinguishing evey day, at all the already overfed fat people greedily stuffing themselves with the flesh and breast milk of suffering captive animals in horrible "living" conditions, and look at the bloody history of human beings themselves. Human kind is not lovely and is the most brutal animal on this planet. Maybe that's what distinguishes us from other living beings and makes us "special". Respecting our neighbours, showing friendly manners, finding beauty in a flower or cherishing a tropical bird (that we hopefully don't cherish by keeping it captive in a cage in our living rooms) is sweet and nice in everyday life, but it doesn't add any value to us as a species. Of course to the individual it adds value to their ego when the ego sees itself as sweet and gentle with a heart so full of love and displaying gestures so kind and heroic that they add meaning to the lives of fellow human beings 💗

Also, you don't need to be religious yourself to live in a culture that is informed by religion and to absorb the various cultural traits and have them shape your views and values without consciously realizing where they stem from. I am atheist but I live in a culture that has been shaped by abrahamic religion and therefore I'm sure I have picked up plenty of social values that were influenced by abrahamic religion and culture, even though those individual values might not be identifiable as religious anymore.
 
Hi again Myra,

Thanks for your very full reply, there's plenty of interest in there.

I agree 100% with your assessment of humans as not being lovely, I too agree that people are in no way perfect. However, what is at the root of so much of those failings? A lack of basic love, respect, understanding, call it what you will. It's our animalistic self that causes so much of the harm.

You write very well about the damage humanity is doing the planet, but how is it that there is an awareness of this? It's because there are those who care enough and love the world enough to want to preserve it and stop us from doing this damage. In a nutshell, that summaries our existence as humans - we are faulty, we cause problems, but at the root of things we are trying to make things better.

My point is that love works, and helps to improve things. I'm not denying that there are problems or saying that life is rosy, quite the opposite. I'm saying that life is a job of work, a renovation that only gets done bit by bit and is seemingly never finished. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try, and it doesn't mean that we shouldn't love.

As for romantic love/sex/instincts etc, again I can see where you are coming from, but a good relationship is based on love and it isn't a technical matter. I also don't believe that love is a question of ego, that tropical bird I was talking about is just beautiful in it's own right. It's not because it makes me feel good about myself, it's just part of life's wonder.

I could go on but I have work in the morning and need to get to bed!
 
Yeti1980 said:
Hi Finished,

I have plenty of life's experience, I'm in my 40's with a previous major relationship behind me. It still doesn't affect my view on love, romantic or otherwise.

I'm sorry that the relationships you have seen have seemingly turned out the way they have, just occasionally that can happen but it shouldn't be accepted as the general rule.

Giving an example very close to home, my parents are in their 80's and have been married 60 years. They still love each other like a pair of teenagers, they are quite a pairing. They are not alone, I know a number of couples who've stayed together and been very happy, the idea that relationships are purely based on neediness and sex is just too shallow for me to accept. Yes, it happens, but then perhaps the relationship isn't happy because it's not based in the proper footing.


I've spent way too much time with older people near the end of their lives. It's amazing how freely they speak about life. When times are good things function just fine for the most part. People are honest, trustworthy, etc, etc, etc. However, things always go bad at some point. That's just part of life. But, that's when you find out how things work. That's the time I like to test people to see how they are at their core. People fold like cheap lawn chairs if they are tested during those periods. The religious people say that's satin doing his thing.

As far as love goes, it should be able to conker satin's tests or however you want to look at it. Yet, look at how many times relationships fail. That's because the initial love chemicals are long gone. People's reactions are then based on their needs like security, wealth, etc, etc, etc. When there aren't enough reasons to stay together then they go their separate ways. If there are enough reasons to stay together they do. Giving examples of old people staying together only shows that they don't want to be alone. My grandparents were married for over 75 years. They cared about each other. But, it was all the other things that kept them together not love. Love starts the bonding process in order to mate and raise children. After that it's based on other things.
 
Yeti1980 said:
I have to say I find the above two posts a little bit too dry to accept. I realise love isn't a bed of roses 100% of the time, it would hardly be worthwhile if it were easy. There really are happy people in loving relationships, it's not just a blanket case of early hormones and then trying to keep the thing going. There really are relationships where people cherish each other, not every relationship can be broken down into scientific chunks and pulled apart.

Love would hardly be worth anything if it were a science.

^This^ :)
 
Just Games said:
Yeti1980 said:
I have to say I find the above two posts a little bit too dry to accept. I realise love isn't a bed of roses 100% of the time, it would hardly be worthwhile if it were easy. There really are happy people in loving relationships, it's not just a blanket case of early hormones and then trying to keep the thing going. There really are relationships where people cherish each other, not every relationship can be broken down into scientific chunks and pulled apart.

Love would hardly be worth anything if it were a science.

^This^ :)

Just thought I'd expand because one thing I have experience of is love lasting a very long time.A love that can transcend the love that you had for a person at the beginning of a relationship.I'm saying this because people who read this thread that still think that love can't last for a very long time even through the bad times as well when love in fact can become even stronger if your very close and good friends with your partner,trust me it can and not for the various negative reasons that have been talked about.So if your young and I'm not lol don't give up on a relationship that can bring the deep love that is possible because it can .

When I first started on this forum I had a disagreement with a marriage knocker.That person said I was boasting about the fact that I was in a strong relationship and I knew five blokes that had all been in marriages and long term relationships
 
Just Games said:
Yeti1980 said:
I have to say I find the above two posts a little bit too dry to accept. I realise love isn't a bed of roses 100% of the time, it would hardly be worthwhile if it were easy. There really are happy people in loving relationships, it's not just a blanket case of early hormones and then trying to keep the thing going. There really are relationships where people cherish each other, not every relationship can be broken down into scientific chunks and pulled apart.

Love would hardly be worth anything if it were a science.

^This^ :)
Additional bit of a positive note to end on because I have experience of long lasting love that can transcend or at least equal that of the passion you feel for a partner you experience at the beginning of a relationship and its not second hand.So don't let the negatives deter you because it can be found and can last a very long time but luck is a big factor and the bad times can amazingly enough(shock,horror) make it stronger.Also for me it helps if you are very good friends too.I may be a bit of a loner but I'm still strong in my believe in for richer , sickness etc.Also it helps if both partners are strong in their beliefs and know when they're onto a good thing and will do anything to keep it.So don't give up a loving long lasting relationship/marriage IS out there.
 
^^^ Of course a strong passion will be found - nature isn't dumb, it will encourage us to mate, bond, etc. by rewarding us with those amazing feelings. It's just really funny that people when they experience these strong emotions think it's some kind of feeling on a higher mental plane and a special emotional experience only reserved to human kind because we're godly or whatever, and some love is "true love" while other types of love can be of an inferior type.

When you see how mother animals defend their offspring you probably just see it as instinct instead of some deep love on an emotional level. Why though when humans do something that looks like love is it above the level of other animals and becomes virtuous and special?
If other animals bond and feel sexually attracted and enjoy hanging out together is it true love too and not just an instinct and a behaviour they're wired to engage in? Why should humans be different? Some people think we and our oh so special feels aren't bound by the laws of nature and have transcended to something on a higher spiritual level, with a soul and stuff, and our feels are "true love" and not just a result of evolutionary processes. It's really funny how much in love humans are with their own experience.

Of course those nice feelings are there, but they're just that: feelings. Feelings are created in our bodies. Our bodies and brains have undergone an evolutionary process that has resulted in certain biological algorithms that will produce those wonderful feelings of "love". The feels are there for sure and it's great to go after them and enjoy them. Just because it feels good doesn't make it "true" love, especially since the "bond" in the case of sexual partners isn't even an unconditional bond and wouldn't be created in the absence of physical interest. Further, we're not a monogamous species and I don't know why people are trying to delude themselves so hard into thinking they ought to be it to be good, and it's a "goal" to be "accomplished"  and a display "true love". 

I don't even understand the need for "partnership". I very well understand the need for physical affection, company etc. But people always make it out as if we had lived in nuclear family units with long term monogamy already in prehistoric times, with one male supplying his female with resources - and strangely she depended on only him alone for the resources she and her babies (who were apparently all fathered by him lol) ate up, because people conveniently forget we lived in tribes or groups, but nevermind. This whole psychological need for "partnership" and finding one's "other half" to feel "complete" just seems like some psychological problem to me. Sure it's the only option we really have as adults in our current environment with nuclear families as the norm, if we want company, not live alone in a home, get physical touch, ... so people are just going to take that route.
 
Hi again Myra,

Another great post that's interesting to read and gives lots to talk about, thank you. It's also another post from me where my bedtime is looming and I have to keep my reply to salient points.

I do understand that there have been different arrangements and social norms over the years, but in my view they are variations on a theme, that theme being love and partnership. In essence, life is hard work. Raising kids, building a house, finding food...it's all hard work no matter what century we are in. It takes a special kind of loving partnership to see us through, it isn't just nice feelings. It's unexplainable but very real, something you can't grab with your hands and yet it exists. It's a fact even though it isn't an object, strange but true.

To give another example of love as a genuine thing, let me ask a question. Why is it that good deeds for other people, seeing the alleviation of suffering, enjoying other people's success just because it's good to see them happy, or hearing that some distant person is back out of hospital such good news?

My favourite TV programme is something called DIY SOS: The Big Build. It started out as the crew fixing up people's comically bad DIY jobs, but has grown into several series where the crew now fix up and even build completely new houses for people who really need it. They've built homes for disabled children, converted homes for families who've had a member paralyzed in an accident, built a roof garden for a children's hospital, the list goes on. The formula is well established, the premise is much the same, and yet for episode after episode, series after series, the final five minutes where the viewers realise just how it changes the recipients lives is always a tear jerker. Gets me every time, I don't mind admitting it.

If life were just a bunch of scientific sensations and survivalist instincts, this programme would be completely pointless and wouldn't be any kind of success. Fact is that actions like I've described touch us deeply and unexplainably and we're all the better for feeling that way.
 
^ Ha! ha! TV shows are just playing to people's EMOTIONS to make money. They are fake and for entertainment purposes only. Again emotions are just hormones causing chemical reactions. Females are designed to be more nurturing in order to protect offspring. Those kind of shows do nothing for me. However, if I watch shows about violence against women then my chemicals start going as men are design to be protectors. Although, it seems likes it okay with some of our bodies to beat the ones we love. Hmmm. Sometimes love sucks.
 

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