Some questions about Love

Is that all you want to know!? This shouldn't take long........

What does love mean to me?

Well there are different kinds. Love of your children, romantic love, the love between close friends or relatives. Being an "NF" type, it means everything to me of course. Its why we were put here. It's the best possible way to experience this life. It's what we all strive for, but can never seem to quite hold onto. It's why we sing, and write, and laugh, and cry. Hopefully, when we leave this world, it's where we'll end up. The funny thing about love is the more you give, the more you get.

The differences between romantic love and the other types?

It's all about connections in the end. The connections are different for the different kinds of love. For me the connections are strongest in the parent/child lovebond and the lover/soulmate lovebond. The parent/child bond is always there. Some ignore it or don't nurture it and I'll never understand that. I've talked before about what a great responsibility it is to raise another human--to shape them. To do this properly, the tool you must use is love. You can give a child everything else, but if love is lacking, you will fail. In many ways you are raising your replacement in the world.

As far as the lovebond between us and our (soul)mates, well that's quite different. This is not the bond that has to be (as with our children), it's the bond that exists because we most desire it to. We wish for someone to know us completely, and love us even with that knowledge. And when its right, we wish to know them completely too and love them despite any shortcomings. We want to be connected to others.

And Love is how we best connect with others.

 

Hmm.

What does love mean to you?
- It's a paradox

What is the difference between romantic love and familial or platonic love?
- Since platonic love can later become romantic love, it's hard to determine. Most of the qualities associated with platonic love, could later form the basis of true love and committment. If you love someone platonically, and spend time with them, get to know them deeply and share things with them, then this could easily develop into romantic love. So, very good question, i have no idea.

Would you rather be loved or love? Why?
- It's never that simple. You can love, with the hope that you'll be loved in return, but if it's not, then loving someone may simply become a burden or frustration.

Is love taught or natural?
- It really depends on the individual. Not everyone is exposed to and perceives love the same. Most of what i perceive to be love is something from religious beliefs (roles in relationships), childhood fairytales, romance novels (boy were they wrong), surrounding family relationships, etc. Any "natural" love or "feeling" of love is really a figment of the imagination, not something on which to base a relationship. Growing up, love was not a feeling, but more about committment and responsibility. It wasn't about feeling or desire. It was more about fulfilling social roles, not experiencing "love." So, the idea of love as a euphoric feeling was a naive fairytale (which it is). So, that's my experience.

 

I dont have the time today to go into the detail I would like, but I do have one add to this.

How I know I love someone is generally the same no matter which type of love.

Their happiness is important to my own. Without a second thought I will put their happiness above my own.

This is difficult to do. I am actually experiencing it right now. I am in love with someone who has their own battles to fight and growth to experience. In doing it they are choosing something I dont agree with and it is personally very painful.
However, because I truly love them I step back and allow these things to transpire with my support and without abandoning them.

I am not talking about enabling. I want to make that clear.

 

I think i'm likely the same in how i approach love.

 

I don't know much about love; all I know is that it takes work to keep it and that it makes you want to be around someone a lot more than you normally are with people, and it makes your chest hurt when they're gone.

 

When someone hurts another, if they truly love them they will take personal responsibility.

No matter the situation, I dont look to blame. I look inward. I am an adult choosing to participate. So many people point fingers out. Change and growth starts with looking in.

 

Love means opened-minded and open-felted growth between two people.
Romantic love is open-minded and open-felted growth, steady calmness changing between two people.
I don't have any experience of true familial love, so I can not say.
I am not sure how exact platonic love is understood in society, but I understand it as souls connection. So, it would be the same as a romantic love.
But differences between platonic and romantic relation is that, I understand romantic feelings comprised of platonic love, passion (correlation between emotional and physical passion).
Hemmm... Experiences.. never had a romantic one, but I have felt how my love can grow when it is shared with me hihi. Sounds a bit funny..Umm, also have felt how I love the positions between two people (me and other person), I have loved the most basic and clearly noticable features in other person, even we haven't deep contact..
to love or to be loved? hmm.. this is tough one.. I can not answer because it makes in me too much paradoxes.
Love is natural, it starts when baby borns and is ready to take naturally, what is given.

 

I had this weird, horrible, and hilariously funny moment when I misread "platonic" love as "plastonic" love.
The more imaginative and irreverent among us will guess why I found that so funny.

 

Truly, I don't understand love. I just feel extremely fortunate because my INFJ and I have been in love for a long time. I believe in romantic love. Read the "Song of Songs" (Song of Solomon) in the Bible and you'll know that it's nothing new.

 

I don't believe in romantic love.

 

Then you don't know what you're missing. That's sad.

 

Will answer to the best of my abilities from my views.

To me, the concept of love is extremely dependent on what type of love you're referring to. In it's most basic form, I see it as a deep affectionate bond between two individuals.

Familial love is something that while still extremely important, is a bit more frequent to encounter than romantic, and as it's name would imply is probably most commonly seen between family members. I see it as mostly characterized by a comfort of feeling slightly more natural in the presence of the other, and a sense of protectiveness. The latter especially applying to a maternal->child bond.

Romantic love is something that from my view is absolutely amazing. I see it as a bond between two individuals that allows them to see past any flaws, to protect, support, and care for each other across a lifetime.

A combination of the two. I'd love to let my idealistic side overshine the rest of me here, but in all honesty, a lifetime of unrequited love would tear me apart a great deal. To be loved is probably amongst my greatest hopes for the future.

However, at the same time, I can certainly say that having loved in the past, it's probably from my experience thus far, the single greatest feeling I have ever felt. To never be able to experience that again would likewise eat away at me.

I would assume that at least some portion of it is natural, in that a caring nature that can even become aggressive to a degree towards any invasion is found in a number of species, regardless of domestication or if they are raised in the wild. Being that that mostly pertains to mother/litter situations, I'd hardly call it anything remotely close to romantic. So familial at the very least, I would say is a good deal, if not mostly natural. That said, I would consider romantic love to be far more a learned concept, and heavily dependent on the culture or society one is raised in, as well as their own views.

 

Love is... yours to discover.

I do not understand love, nor do I want to. Its one of those things that I would rather not put in a limiting, categorical box with definitive list of qualities. The experience is broad and individual, and I rather like the raw, unpredictable power that colours each experience. I find myself re-evaluating what it means to me every time I fall in love, am loved, or expand in love.

I couldn't define it if I tried.

 

Love is becoming one with that which you love.
Separated from it, you can not love it.
Although you can call it love.

Love fills you full, without it taking anything away from its source.
Love is like perpetual motion:
Created out of nothing, it powers itself, unless something interrupts it.

 

I don't know but i'm kinda rethinking my stance on love. I can't talk about something i've never truly experienced. I think years of romanticizing the concept has created unrealistic ideas about what it is. It takes a lot to truly love a person, beyond the romance and idealism of it all. And i'd rather see it as a distant concept which may be easy to fall in love with, but no reality behind it except when it happens, and figuring it out at that point. I have few expectations at this point. So, if and when it happens, we'll see. For now, it's pretty much just a really cool idea in a beautiful love song.

 

It's secreted in your brain, believe it or not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine

 

I think love is the glue that holds the universe together. But to define it, to try to source my emotions from it or source it from my emotions is a task that I don't want to try to undertake. I'd rather bask in it and feel it, than 3rd person myself and take it apart.

I think these experiences depend very much on the people involved. People can have equally intimate but different relationships of a platonic and romantic nature. I think when you reach a certain degree of love, it transcends beyond the type of relationship (romantic vs. plantonic). Some people might say a romantic relationship is the closest two people can possibly be, but I don't think that's necessarily true, even though romantic relationships include dimensions of yourself that are not shared with other people in plantonic relationships. For instance, sometimes people talk about soulmates as though they can only occur in romantic instances. But what if soulmates occur within platonic or even familial relationships? To an extent I think our society has really hierarchized romantic relationships, which I think is mostly an illusion.

I'd rather love, if I really had to choose. I think you need to feel love within you in order to really receive someone's love and share it. Also, because we are social creatures, we're more likely to reciprocate love to those who share their love with us. And the feeling of love flowing through you for someone else is splendorous, whereas waiting to be loved feels empty.

I believe that love is a natural feeling that will seek expression if allowed to do so. Kids have to encounter a lot of fear, anger, and distrust in order to stop feeling or expressing love. However, I believe love is a state, perhaps an emotion. Feeling love isn't the same as expressing love. Many people claim to feel love for others, but their actions towards them aren't loving. So I think that feeling love inside oneself isn't synonymous with being a loving person towards others. For whatever reason, some people need to learn how to channel their feelings of love into their interactions with others. They need to learn the social language of translating how they feel in ways that are understood and accepted by others. This includes having the personal skills to effectively cope with one's own feelings and the social know-how of expressing them. Socialization plays a role here.

 

What does love mean to you?

I have two ideas about love (romantic love, that is). On the one hand, I probably over-romanticize love (ironic, no?). I think love is knowing that a person is imperfect but loving them the way that they are, anyway, to the extent that the only thing you want more than having them in your life is for them to have the happiest life possible. On the other hand, I think love is really just a combination of enjoying a person's company and finding them physically/sexually attractive. It's two parts of your brain being stimulated at once so that the effect a person has on you is twice as strong.

What is the difference between romantic love and familial or platonic love? Any Experiences you'd like to share?

You want to have sex with someone that you feel romantic love for.

Would you rather be loved or love? Why?

Although one of my biggest fears is not to be loved, I would rather go loveless than know that my heart was empty and also that I was hurting another by not loving them in return. I guess I feel like it's my job to love everyone else, whether or not they realize or return my affections.

Is love taught or natural?

Perhaps it is a bit of both. It almost seems to me like we aren't taught love, necessarily, but that it's okay to love. If you aren't made to feel loved as a child, you might remain in a defensive state which keeps you from being harmed by others whom you assume will not or cannot love you.

 

hmmm... I am sorry, but I haven't read all that text, but I had read about dopamine a bit, some time ago. I even saw a picture of that neurotransmitter . Many psychotropical ( I don't know is that the correct name for it... I am confused because it looks like tropical psycho ) medication is based on dopamine's interacting with some other neurotransmitters. For example when you are depressed there isn't enough dopamine, and when you have some kind other disease it is too much of that, or maybe it is even working somehow unproportionally. When a person get medication for its controling he is getting better if it is combined with psychoterapy or changing of self-beliefs. In other words, he should believe,take that mood into himself, what is given by medication, then it needs more time when he accepts it, into all what he is. Also, science showed that when a person is thinking, he can change those materials in his brain. So, I see a question, is dopamine is me, or I am a dopamine? For example, when two healthy people meet each other, and one of them falls in love with other and the other one no, then there can start depression.
So when Skoffin is saying " I don't believe in romantic love", you can not say it is hidden in your brains, it is the same like to say, you have theoricly possibility to love, but you are hiding it in yourself, even now, what Skoffin really is, is that believe, that he/she doesn't believe.