This is the best title and start to a thread I have ever seen
I feel incompetent to answer but I'm going to do it anyway
I have always questioned what love is since I can remember. For me I think I've always just been in pursuit of the purest love, not knowing which kind of relationship that lay in; whether it was family, friends or romantic.
I recall stepping away from my 'friends' at school when I was 8 because I felt like they weren't really my friends (or what I perceived how friends should be). Although I'm sure at the time I didn't quite understand what true friendship would be like, I guess my soul was looking for something deeper and what I had at the time did not meet that need.
I have also always been cynical about the kind of romantic love exhibited by western society (and especially within Hollywood). As a result of which I believe that most people confuse lust and limerence for love.
During adolescence I developed insecurities within myself and so began looking more for acceptance than love (from my family); maybe I though acceptance was love. I thought since my experience with friendship made me realise that friends cannot provide true love, then surely family could. Thus began my 20 year ordeal of trying to get my father to accept me, and my family members to understand me too.
My 20's were rough. I was abandoned by everyone in my family (basically everyone I loved) after some of their mistakes and my blind eagerness for their acceptance lead me to being completely isolated from the world.
As I began to see the flaws in my family members, in my heart and soul I began to feel that there was that one person that I would meet one day and they would love and understand me like no-one else and I would do the same in return. So I guess it was a soulmate kind of love I believed in; one of complete understanding. This 'soulmate' kind of love feels like that concept of love that I said I hated seeing within films etc. But deep within me something yearned for it, at the same time not believing that the 'at first sight/happy ever after' kind of love was actually love. It was the same yearning I felt as a 8 year old and I felt like I'd know when I experience it. My concept of love now was that which included complete honesty without any fear of rejection or abandonment. To give without wanting anything in return. To be able to sit in perfectly comfortable silence. To be able to talk more with my eyes that with words. To deal with conflict in an open and understanding way. To help them become who they want to be in life and letting them do so freely.
By 27 I had given up all hope of finding the soulmate bond I had been looking for (although at the time I had no name for it; it was just a feeling). I could feel my heart turning cold. There were several years where I could not cry. I continued trying to be accepted by my family because that was the cycle I had gotten myself into.
Turning 30, I realised the way in which I was living my life was not working. I stepped back to reflect on everything. One of the answers was to doorslam my father. This led me to a path where I would learn to love myself. It is after I finally felt 'whole' without anyone else that I found the love I had always been looking for.
I finally felt within my heart that I had finally found that bond my soul had always yearned for. It encompassed everything within my concept of love. I wanted it to remain like this for life; a love where I would not need to be with him physically. To help and support him emotionally and physically whenever he needed me to. For him to know that he would never be alone in this world, as he went about his life as he chose to.
At this point I though I had fallen into the trap of lust and limerence, so I took a step back form him. I took a couple of months to reflect on the relationship and how I felt. During this time, I tried my best to see him for who he was; his flaws, insecurities and so on. He gave me space and I came to the conclusion that I loved him completely despite his flaws etc and therefore it was not just the 'honeymoon' period I was under the spell of.
But then after a year a neediness erupted within us both. I absolutely hated this; it went against my concept of pure love. But I couldn't stop it; I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this man when I always knew I could not, nor could I tell him as it would stop him from moving forward in his life. This actually began to break my heart even before the relationship was over. External factors ensured we couldn't be together and the relationship ended. Towards the end of the relationship, my unhealthy attachment style also 'kicked in' and I felt even more needy and clingy, without letting him know.
It took me 6 months to fall out of that conventional, needy kind of love. The hardest period of my life thus far (I guess I'm lucky that heartbreak is the worst I have had to endure in life yet). But what remains now is that feeling that always wants him to be happy wherever he is or whatever he is doing. When I hear or see he is doing well it brings tears to my eyes and I feel proud that I can care for someone in that way. I don't have an urge to want to see him or talk with him, unless I think he is down or upset. For me this is the purest love.
But, because of no physical contact and his changed behaviour, I am beginning to feel indifferent to him. So maybe the concept of love that I have always wanted does not exist after all. Not for the long-term anyway. I think I only just realised that I believe that a relationship in which there is a need for permanent cohabitation goes against what I currently believe to be love.
Now I have found that I still need physical companionship in life, so I find myself in another relationship and I feel like I'm falling in love with him. But it's just not like what I had before. It feels like it's more at my body and heart level like my earlier relationships were; it's not a love that touches my soul (like the previous one did instantly). That's what I think about love now - there's a love which is at body level and physical (and sexual too I guess). Then there's a deeper level that touches my heart. And there's that rare occasion which has only happened to me once in my life, that it caresses my soul. And I actually feel like that once is enough. I found what I was looking for and I experienced it to the full extent. I'm happy if all the love I experience thereafter only goes as far as my heart.
So there it is, another post that I feel has gone on for way too long and is just waffling. it think I went off point too:/
P.S. I guess I'm always going to be a student of love; I'm still learning.
I wish you the purest of love.