What is love....?

[leto86]

Woooow.

Ok.

I am 22 years old. I've had crushes, flings, all that jazz. I can't say I ever was in love.

I don't know what it is... what it feels like? How you know... how easy and quick it is to fall?


I know a love for a family member. For a pet, or even an inanimate object. (yes, I love my laptop and my phone.

) But I don't know..

anyone care to describe their own feeling.. their own perception?

 

[ut0pia]

I can't say I've ever found it either..
To me it has all just been flings.
I have lost faith because each time I think I'm in love for the first month then I realize it's just infatuation. It has come to the point where I expect the excitement to die down so I don't even kid myself that I'm in love at the start..

 

[spudsmom]

That is tough. It's cliche to say that you will know when you feel it, but it is really true. It's more than lust, though that does play a part in it.I met my DH when I was dating my first husband, married the first one but it never had a committed feeling to it...mostly on his part, but that's a long story. I always thought of my DH (now), there was just a spark there that could not be ignored. Thanks to family members, we hooked up when I was divorcing my first husband. I was so head over heels for him, but had no desire to get married again. Marriage was nothing I ever wanted to do again. He worked on me for two & 1/2 years before I accepted his proposal. Almost 26 yrs later...I have never regretted saying yes( more than 5 times.)

Seriously, he's my soul mate. Sometimes you have to kiss a lot of toads before the Prince shows up and you still have to remember what attracted you to him in the first place. They change, we change...accepting those changes is a big part of a long relationship. Good luck on finding the right one. You're still young and have a lot of time to weed out the toads.

 

[snake_lady]

Oh wow, that is a very difficult question indeed. I've been in love several times, and currently am. But describing it is difficult.

Love is an emptiness in your soul when that person is not around.... it is a deep down desire to share with them the most personal details of your life.... it is a feeling of euphoria (not sexual, emotional).... it is acceptance of the best and the worst qualities..... it is trust...love empowers you, embraces you within its arms, it is a warmth deep down inside.

You know..... when you are in love, you know. Its unlike any other feeling... it is passionate yet gentle, hunger yet satisfaction, primal yet emotional, emptiness yet fullness.

Love is different for every person.... some can love with their entire being, others can only give parts.

It is the urge to grow old together

 

[tigerontheprowl]

Love is pretty easy to recognize, but it can be hard to find. When you are with someone you love, everything is perfect. All that matters is that you're together. When you are in a fling with someone, you might think that everything is perfect, and that you've found it, but in the back of your mind, you just know that it's not love. It's very difficult to explain.

 

[snake_lady]

For the record, I just asked my husband this same question..... he'll get back to me with an answer later on

 

[-_aj_-]

i cant describe what love is well not really i dont think, but to me its the warm fuzzy feeling inside when your special someone is with you and missing them when they arent around you , knowing that you have got someone to stand by you even when they know you are in the wrong and vice versa someone that will do anything for you.

i thought i was in love with my last partner but then i met blaine and everythink fell into place and everything just felt so right

 

[oodlesofpoodles]

Honestly i have been inlove 3 times. and each time was completely different. This time is the most full i have experianced. It is different than the simply romantic love i had in the past. The way i feel about Jeff is the same kind of loyalty, dedication, affection, and respect that i feel for my familyand close friends, mixed with the passion, and romance, ive felt for past loves. All tied together with commitment, and love.

Sometimes we kiss like they do in the movies...but most times i just feel like he is part of me...always was, always will be. What i feel isnt based on attraction, it isnt based on lust. I love him completely...flaws and all...even in the moments when i want to rip my hair out and scream from frusteration...i love him. When you can be so angry at someone but still smile fondly at something you remember about them or some little thing they have done...that is love. Its larger than anger or hate or hurt. In life we dont know what tomorrow will bring...to me love means knowing that as long as that person is there...it doesnt MATTER what tomorrow brings, you will make it through. Storm or Breeze.

Anyway...that was really mushy of me

 

[weldrwomn]

Love is holding back the hair of your SO while they are being sick with the flu

 

[nekomania]

Baby don't hurt me!!!

Sorry... couldn't resist...


It is very cliche to say that you will know it when you feel it, but it's absolutely right. The feeling of love is different for every person that experiences it I think, and what compells you to a person could be completely different reasons than why anyone else on this forum is compelled to be with a person.

For me, I was in love with Cody before I knew that I was in love with him. I actually didn't want to fall for him and tried pushing him away on numerous occasions because I had my then current relationship to focus on.

Until one day, and I don't remember why, I told him that I loved him and I didn't care if he loved me back or not but that I just wanted him to know. And a few hours later he said "I think I love you too..." and that was a sealed deal from then on.

I like to think that being in love with someone means that you can accept that person for everything that they are, good or bad. Meaning that no matter what your husband/boyfriend/significant other ever does, there's nothing that can't ever be fixed with trying and time. There's nothing he/she could do/say/like/want/watch/eat/play..etc that wouldn't be okay or tolerable.

Then again I'm a fairly open minded person and I take everything in stride. So maybe I can deal with the abnormal and crazy better than others? Maybe because I too am abnormal and crazy!

 

[natalie_ca]

Originally Posted by spudsmom

That is tough. It's cliche to say that you will know when you feel it, but it is really true. It's more than lust, though that does play a part in it.

Yes, so true.

Love is a very subjective emotion. Each person has their own definition, if there is one, and each experiences it differently.

The love between a man and a woman in a committed relationship is very complex.

For me it's that glowing floating on a cloud feeling. The desire to be with the person in a non-obsessive way (IE: stalking behaviour). When I'm in love, he's the first thing on my mind when I wake up in the morning and the last thing on my mind when I fall asleep at night. He's the first person I want to tell if I see or hear something funny. The first person I want to talk to when something is right or wrong in my life. And just being in the same room with the room is enough at times. That's where the lust factor comes in. Lust is purely sexual. If all you both do when you see each other is grope each other and jump into bed, that's not love. When you are in love you get that same glowing after sex feeling of satisfaction by just being around close to that person, even if it's just an evening spent cuddling and nothing else.

You also care about what the other person thinks and feels and take that into consideration, though unconsciously most of the time.

You really will know it when you find it. But beware, just because you found the love of your life, doesn't mean that the feeling is mutual. It's possible to be deeply in love with someone and think that they are your soul-mate, while they don't feel the same way about you. Which is what makes love such a hard thing to deal with because it means a great number of broken hearts before you do find someone that loves you in the same way that you love him.

 

[mrblanche]

Here's what one great writer said:

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

http://nlt.scripturetext.com/1_corinthians/13.htm

Love is friendship, and so much more. It is commitment, trust, passion, comfort.

And "love at first sight" rarely exists. It usually develops over time.

 

[weldrwomn]

Originally Posted by mrblanche

Here's what one great writer said:

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

http://nlt.scripturetext.com/1_corinthians/13.htm

Love is friendship, and so much more. It is commitment, trust, passion, comfort.

And "love at first sight" rarely exists. It usually develops over time.

I completely agree with this. Especially the part about love being friendship. I consider my hubby to be my best friend. We were friends and we gradually developed love. He is still my best friend.

 

[p&r]

When you're in LOVE you know it, there's no denying it, no other feeling like it. I was fortunate enough to meet and fall inlove with my husband at a young age

 

[swampwitch]

The people I deeply and truly love, I would give up my life for. Everybody else... no way.

I guess you are talking about romantic love, and it's the same as any other real love when some of the swooniness wears off. People who love you show respect, tenderness, and want to look out for you. They never make you feel bad about yourself, just the opposite, in fact, they look for ways to make your life easier and happier. They take care of you when you are sick no matter how gross or difficult it is. When love is a mutual thing and you are doing all this for them, too, it's very, very good.

With my husband and I, it was love at first sight, but I don't think it always has to be that way. My heart still starts beating really fast with excitement every time I see my husband - together 19 years now.

 

[ldg]

I wonder if it is that love grows out of the friendship - or the love was always there, and you grow into your realization of it?

...Because Gary says he loved me the minute he saw me, and I believe him. I made him wait 12 years because.... because I needed to experience a lot of life and myself in other relationships before I was ready to "live love." I told boyfriends I loved them, but there was never a doubt in my mind that I didn't really. A kind of love, I guess - but not the "I want to get old with this person" love.

I married a man I knew I wasn't in love with.... because I'd never had a relationship that lasted much less than a year and I didn't feel like bothering anymore, and I was in a foreign culture, and they had the "you grow into love" philosophy. I didn't.

I have to agree with the others. When you're in love, you know it.

When Gary and I got back together after 12 years, he was in Seattle, I was in NY. We talked on the phone every night for 3 months. I flew to Seattle on Christmas Day. He asked me to marry him, I said yes, and we were married the next day. The feeling was so literally electric, I could physically feel his presence wherever he was in the house and knew exactly where he was.

I'm with Cat, but I take it even further. I'd not only give up my life for the people I truly love, I'd take lives if necessary (and I think that would be a lot harder for me).

He's my best friend, I love spending time with him. Funny movies are funnier with Gary, the sun shines brighter with Gary. I love his breath - even when he hasn't just brushed his teeth. His smell is comforting. I want to do everything with him and share everything with him. I love learning new things and experiencing new things with him. I have no secrets, no shame, I want him to know everything about me, and there's nothing he could tell me about himself that would make me think less of him. His flaws, fears, and weaknesses are things that endear him to me, not things that make me go "Hunh....." In this love, there are no "wrongs." In fact, I think that for me the best way to describe it, really, is that is isn't a "feeling" at all, so much as it is a way of being together. It's a sense of wanting to make each other happy, not be made happy, and wanting to be better people, and finding positive and supportive ways to do this.

But for me... I had to love and respect myself first, and I had to feel complete and whole and perfectly happy alone first. Then I was ready to "be" real love - because after having written all of this, I've come to the conclusion that "real love" really is more a way of being, than something you're "in."

 

[oodlesofpoodles]

Originally Posted by WELDRWOMN

Love is holding back the hair of your SO while they are being sick with the flu

This is so true!

 

[katiemae1277]

Originally Posted by LDG

I wonder if it is that love grows out of the friendship - or the love was always there, and you grow into your realization of it?

...Because Gary says he loved me the minute he saw me, and I believe him. I made him wait 12 years because.... because I needed to experience a lot of life and myself in other relationships before I was ready to "live love." I told boyfriends I loved them, but there was never a doubt in my mind that I didn't really. A kind of love, I guess - but not the "I want to get old with this person" love.

I married a man I knew I wasn't in love with.... because I'd never had a relationship that lasted much less than a year and I didn't feel like bothering anymore, and I was in a foreign culture, and they had the "you grow into love" philosophy. I didn't.

I have to agree with the others. When you're in love, you know it.

When Gary and I got back together after 12 years, he was in Seattle, I was in NY. We talked on the phone every night for 3 months. I flew to Seattle on Christmas Day. He asked me to marry him, I said yes, and we were married the next day. The feeling was so literally electric, I could physically feel his presence wherever he was in the house.

I'm with Cat, but I take it even further. I'd not only give up my life for the people I truly love, I'd take lives if necessary (and I think that would be a lot harder for me).

He's my best friend, I love spending time with him. Funny movies are funnier with Gary, the sun shines brighter with Gary. I love his breath - even when he hasn't just brushed his teeth. His smell is comforting. I want to do everything with him and share everything with him. I love learning new things and experiencing new things with him. I have no secrets, no shame, I want him to know everything about me, and there's nothing he could tell me about himself that would make me think less of him. His flaws, fears, and weaknesses are things that endear me to him, not things that make me go "Hunh....." In this love, there are no "wrongs." In fact, I think that for me the best way to describe it, really, is that is isn't a "feeling" at all, so much as it is a way of being together. It's a sense of wanting to make each other happy, not be made happy, and wanting to be better people, and finding positive and supportive ways to do this.

But for me... I had to love and respect myself first, and I had to feel complete and whole and perfectly happy alone first. Then I was ready to "be" real love - because after having written all of this, I've come to the conclusion that "real love" really is more a way of being, than something you're "in."

this post just gave me a lump in my throat

I have been in love before, but I have not found that deep forever love yet

 

[shelly's dad]

i don't post alot on tcs but laurie asked me what is love and told me why she asked.

my first thought was that if a car was speeding toward us i would push laurie out of the way but its more than that. If i needed a liver and my mother’s was the right type I’d take my mother’s life to get laurie her liver. For me killing someone to save laurie’s life is easy , i fought in active combat for over 6 years. killing someone else i love is harder , but it is something I would be willing to do though i doubt laurie would let me. The only question is how many lives would I be willing to take? I’d commit mass genocide . It’s more an issue of how much ammunition i have when it comes down to it. of course I would do nothing that would harm Laurie mentally , so allthough I would be willing, it ’s something i would never do.

This love I have for Laurie, I couldn’t “get by” without her. i don’t want to live without Laurie she is my best friend, my one and only, my everything.

I suffer from a disease that has an 8.9% suicide rate in the first 12 months of the disease . I live in pain 24 hours a day. This January it will be three years that i have not been without pain for even a minute , this pain is described by the doctors that treat me as the most intense pain a human can suffer , women who suffer this pain say they’d rather give birth daily without anasthetic. I suffer this pain to be with Laurie. Her name is tattooed on my armn and her name is tattooed on my ring finger. If she’d let me I would have her name branded on my back. i dont know how to post pictures so i will ask her to do it.

but she is what i think of in the morning and what i think of at night. she is the reason i wake up in the morning and though i spend many sleepless nights i love to watch her sleep , even when she snores.

 

[ldg]

Gary asked me to post these.





...and I took the plunge too.



I guess you know you're really in love when you're willing to make this kind of commitment.