NationStates Jolt Archive

I was reading the first few pages of the Evolution is Wrong thread and came across this little blurb:

"love is just lust showing itself a bit stronger."

Which seemed to confirm my suspicion that many people in the world, especially here in America with the "every man for himself" attitude it promotes, seem to recognize little distinction between the two when as far as I'm concerned they're polar opposites.

So the question is, what do you believe love to be? What does it mean to you when you say you love someone?

Love is a strong, firm handed spank on the ass.

True love is when you can take a dump without minding that someone special being in the same room.

A fabrication to get someone in bed. and what general said.

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Oh, no, it is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of Doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.


he said it best.

Love is putting up with all the flaws in yourself and your partner to the exclusion of all others despite hundreds of thousands of years of biological imperative that you cheat as often and as joyously as possible. Love is miserable and wonderful all at once.

Love is unity, the coming together of two things to be one.

Lust is sex and hormones.

I should've known this thread was either not going to be taken seriously, or reflect just how little people in general care about something as important as love... :(

Well, at least the next three posts made while posting this were a little more positive...

I should've known this thread was either not going to be taken seriously, or reflect just how little people in general care about something as important as love... :(
I think even the answers in jest say something significant. ;)

I presume people who think love is just magnified lust also dont care much for their family or any offspring they might have.

I was reading the first few pages of the Evolution is Wrong thread and came across this little blurb:

"love is just lust showing itself a bit stronger."

ugh, thats hurts me. love strikes from the heart; lust is an appetite for the flesh.

Well...
Since I don't believe I have ever experienced true love... I can't help you out.
I must jest at it.

Here's what I wrote on love almost two years ago.. really should've written another draft of it by now, but I've been struggling with a severe lack of motivation and will to write for quite a while, so rare moments of inspiration like this rarely get followed up on...

Will you be mine? I hope the answer is no. You should not have to give yourself to me, or anyone for that matter. You are not a possession, something for someone else to own, even if it’s through the bond of love. That isn’t love, not true love. True love is honest desire, the desire to help, to help improve, to comfort, to protect, to satisfy. True love is one thing the belief in God can help teach. True love is selflessness and without expectation, to forget your own concerns to provide for another. True love can only survive if nurtured both ways. True love is infinite.

The idea of “I’m yours, you’re mine” is perhaps one of the most subtly destructive thoughts to true love’s existence. It’s suggestive of possession. Possessions are easily taken for granted. Your loved one becomes yours. She (or he) will always be there. You expect her to be there. You expect her to meet your expectations of her. You forget that it’s not about you. It is not “will you be mine?” it is “will you share you life with me?” Not “I’m yours” but “let me share my life with you.” For that is what it is, sharing your lives together, not having joint ownership thereof.

You must not be with her for what she provides you, must not stay simply because you’re afraid to be alone, or because you already have her and doubt you could find better anyways. The honest desire to be with her is essential, but it can only be there if you care more for her than yourself. Place her concerns, her well-being, her goals, her wants, her desires, her dreams, her life, in front of your own. This is not to forget your own life completely, but to make sure she is provided for before yourself.

For many people, this requires turning to God. For He is all loving, all forgiving, but if only you believe and repent and devote your life to serving Him. But love of God is just the second step. Learn to love yourself, learn to love God, learn to love all of God’s creations, then devote yourself to the ones you love. That is a part of love, devoted service. This is not answering to every beck and call, but support, comfort, companionship, understanding. Serve your loved one in anyway that you believe will help them improve or ease their restless souls, and in return, you should be able to rely on his or her devotion to you. That is how true love is found.

To devote yourself to the ones you love is to take all your selfish desires and project them out onto others, not by fulfilling yours, but by fulfilling theirs’. You must take all the love you have for yourself and project it onto others, namely, your wife or husband and/or children, as well as your parents and closest friends, and ideally, everyone and everything. This requires you to give up personal satisfaction in order to please your loved ones. True love has no place for selfishness. What do you expect of your loved one? The answer? Nothing. You can only expect yourself to love her, and hope that she loves you in return. Expectations placed on your loved one is how selfishness reveals itself, and you must break these expectations in order to do this. You cannot expect her to be faithful; you cannot allow jealousy to taint your love. You cannot expect her to do something for you. You cannot expect her not to do something she wants to do. You must allow her to be herself. You must allow her to keep her life. You must be there to fill the holes she cannot fill herself. You must complete her, not to try to use her to fulfill yourself.

But most important of all, everything mentioned so far must go both ways. For you to give up yourself for her requires her to give up herself for you. True love, no matter how strong, can never survive if it is not returned; no soul has enough to love both itself and another, not for long. It is these one-sided relationships that are the most destructive to a loving soul, because using someone’s love in this way will certainly lead to its harm, corrupting it and twisting a person’s perception as to what love truly is. And indeed, it can already be seen how this is true. Love is an all too common and frivolous word today often confused for simple lust, which is exactly what love becomes when used to fulfill your own desires, and most relationships are rarely expected to last, divorce practically seen as a common, every-day necessity of life.

But when true love is nurtured and returned and built upon, it is infinite, it is truly loving God Himself, and it is the only way to heaven, whether up above or on earth itself. When your love is focused on the ones you love and not yourself, it can always provide for more, but only as long as the ones you love also have their love focused on the ones they love. When you love and support everyone else and everyone else loves and supports you, only then can everyone be truly loved and supported, and it is this ever-expanding love that surrounds and connects everyone to everything that unlocks the gates of heaven.

I believe the same. Love is like a serious injury that never felt so good. :)

What is love, love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more...
What is love.....

I should've known this thread was either not going to be taken seriously, or reflect just how little people in general care about something as important as love... :(

Well, at least the next three posts made while posting this were a little more positive...

I was being dead serious.

I was being dead serious.
I thought it was witty.

What is love, love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more...
What is love.....

thats classic ;)

I should've known this thread was either not going to be taken seriously, or reflect just how little people in general care about something as important as love... :(

Well, at least the next three posts made while posting this were a little more positive...
Hey buddy, I was being quite serious. That's really what I think of love. I think love means sticking it out, and working at a relationship. Love doesn't come easy.

thats classic ;)Auhg, it reminds me of all those bar-mitzvah parties in grade seven. bah.

True love is when you can take a dump without minding that someone special being in the same room.


I've been married for 12 years but with the same lady for 20. I still wont dump with her in the room. Nor would I go in when she was. There are just some things you dont share.

Auhg, it reminds me of all those bar-mitzvah parties in grade seven. bah.

every time i hear that song i think of the movie "night at the roxburry."

I've been married for 12 years but with the same lady for 20. I still wont dump with her in the room. Nor would I go in when she was. There are just some things you dont share.

Me and my ex lived together for 6 years. We always woke up late and had only one bathroom...That's when you learn to share.

I was reading the first few pages of the Evolution is Wrong thread and came across this little blurb:

"love is just lust showing itself a bit stronger."

Which seemed to confirm my suspicion that many people in the world, especially here in America with the "every man for himself" attitude it promotes, seem to recognize little distinction between the two when as far as I'm concerned they're polar opposites.

So the question is, what do you believe love to be? What does it mean to you when you say you love someone?

Love is a many-splendored thing.

What is love? When it don't hurt me... don't hurt me... no more. Whoa. Whoa. Ooh.

Hey buddy, I was being quite serious. That's really what I think of love. I think love means sticking it out, and working at a relationship. Love doesn't come easy.
But, you were one of the three posts made while I was writing my post.. that was more a comment on the first three posts made after I started this thread.

. loved, lov·ing, loves
v. tr.
1.To have a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward 2.(a person): We love our parents. I love my friends.
3.To have a feeling of intense desire and attraction toward (a person).
4.To have an intense emotional attachment to: loves his house.
a.To embrace or caress.
b.To have sexual intercourse with.
5.To like or desire enthusiastically: loves swimming.
6.Theology. To have charity for.
7.To thrive on; need: The cactus loves hot, dry air.

hey, the book saids it right.

but then again, my understanding of it is that,

Love, is a journy of seaching somebody who eill never hurt you in anyways, and can also be trusted with your private feelings and thoughts.

But, you were one of the three posts made while I was writing my post.. that was more a comment on the first three posts made after I started this thread.
Oh. Ok then:).

Love is knowing you can't do any better and for some reason it doesn't bother you.

Buy that man a Miller beer! The best comes shining through!

Love, is a journy of seaching somebody who eill never hurt you in anyways, and can also be trusted with your private feelings and thoughts.
You're almost right, only love isn't a journey of searching for someone like that, love is being someone like that for others...

What is love, love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more...
What is love.....

I was going to say that!
I love that song :cool:

Love - "A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness."

Damn i love google...

"The delusion that one woman is different from the next"

HL Mencken

You're almost right, only love isn't a journey of searching for someone like that, love is being someone like that for others...

hmmm.....i guess that's where some people struggle when they can't be one or that they don't try becuz they don't understand the need of being someone like that....eh?

Love - "A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness."

Damn i love google...
Yeah, I wish I could be content never thinking about anything for myself and relying on other people to come up with my answers for me...

Love is a verb. It's not just how you feel, it's how you behave. Love is the way you treat people. Love is a choice that you make, to put other people before yourself, to value someone else's thoughts, feelings and needs above your own.

Alos, there's an awesome quote from Captain Correlli's Mandolin...

"Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion... that is just being "in love" which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away... roots that grow towards each other underground and when all the pretty blossoms falls from the branches you find that you are one tree and not two... your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part."

I like that description of love.

Love is when...

our perceptions [are] made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.

Suddenly, we can look past the inperfections in a person and see only the love that replaces them. Love is when we look past how a person looks and see their soul, and our own soul sings with the beauty we find.

Love might seem special and magical when you're in it, but really, it's just a run of the mill mundane thing that happens to millions of people all the time, like male pattern baldness.

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Oh, no, it is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of Doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.


he said it best.
'Tis one of the best sonnets, yes. I still want to twap my English professor for pointing out though that what Shakespear was talking about in 116 wasn't love but errections. Now I too can't read this without breaking into giggles.

What is love is the most retarded question ever. Since we acknowledge the fact that love is a human emotion, then how can you rationally deconstruct whats love and whats not love? We can only rationally deconstruct things like how a machine functions or how a plane flys. To rationally deconstruct natural emotions would be dehumanizing since you are basically saying that all humans need to function in a certain way. (i.e.: when we push this buttom the car moves, when we feel think someone is attractive or feel affection then we are in love: how does this separate us from a machine?) People all love in different ways and to prescribe a single definition of love would simply be dehumanizing since all those couples that do not fall under that definition shall not be defined as being in love. Also to set a single definition or many definitions for love would be harmful because its like prescribing certain acts for a specific human emotion. To do this would degrade human beings because its like saying we are like machines and our actions can be predictable and love would also lose its sacred nature.

I was reading the first few pages of the Evolution is Wrong thread and came across this little blurb:

"love is just lust showing itself a bit stronger."

Which seemed to confirm my suspicion that many people in the world, especially here in America with the "every man for himself" attitude it promotes, seem to recognize little distinction between the two when as far as I'm concerned they're polar opposites.

So the question is, what do you believe love to be? What does it mean to you when you say you love someone?
Here's something I found in a box of old stuff a while back:


The Useless Phrase

Saying "I love you" seems rather ambiguous to me. When you tell someone you love them it can mean any number of things; it can mean "thank you," or "you have been a swell friend," or "I'll miss you, you old so-and-so." As a description of one's state of mind and/or feelings for another person, "I love you" is not especially practical. In fact, "I love you" is really quite prosaic, an essentially useless phrase.

Say, rather, I think of you. When I feel rotten I want to call you and vent, and good things aren't as real until I tell you about them.

Say, instead, I see you. I recognize your walk, your smell, your quirks of speech. I am as familiar with your writing as with my own, and I could pick your hands out of a line up.

I believe you. I trust you when you tell me you will stay with me, and even when we fight I believe you care for me. I allow without fear that you will stand with me and not laugh at my eccentricities (much).

I worry about you. When you are late I think of car accidents and when you don't call I think of violent burglers breaking in on you. I guard your safety as selfishly as I do my own.

I talk with you. I tell you my most appalling secrets because you trust me with yours. I tell you when I have been crying and when I have been scared. I pull no punches, I edit no thoughts, and I do not need to embellish to make myself better. Not to you.

More than anything, I am comfortable with you. You have seen me naked, you have seen me fresh from the shower with all my defenses washed off. You have watched me shave, brush my teeth, put on deodorant. I slouch around in old clothes, I pick food out of my teeth, I launder my unmentionables in front of you. I eat out of the pan, I play computer games, I watch terrible late night television, and I know you will forgive me. I let you see me as I am.

No brief three-word phrase could adequately describe my feelings for you. No clipped arrangement of single syllables could summerize all the ways you know me. But since even a book of my ramblings would not provide sufficient explanation of my feelings, I might as well fall back on those trite, over-used words, and trust that you will understand all the things I am trying to express when I say I love you.

I think Uma Thurman's character in Pulp Fiction really hit the nail on the head on love. Saying that when you find someone really special you can shut the fuck up and enjoy comfortable silence together.

Ah. Life springs eternal. Living is loving. The eternal question, then: what is love?

What? Okay, I'll quit being poetic and answer the actual question.

Well, I mean, honestly... it's hard to say concisely, but here are some of the things that make up love. You like the person in question a lot, first of all, you feel a connection, in that friend way. Then you feel this intense appreciation for them. Once these two happen, the physical attraction usually follows. You want to be around them, and spend a lot of time with them. You don't think they're perfect, but their flaws don't bother you. You care deeply for them and about what's going on in their life. You really want to know them, and once you truly do, you appreciate and enjoy who they are so much, it doesn't really matter what medium - discussion, humor, art, touch - they use to express it. You stop trying to impress each other and simply be yourselves because neither of you is looking at affectations. Even if you are attracted to other people, your bond is enough that it is unimportant.

I suppose, in summary - love is a deep appreciation and respect of the core identity in the other person, and the desire to cause them joy by showing it to them. The beginning steps happen without our attention and sometimes outside our control - that's what we call crushes or attraction - but to reach love you must know where you are going and use love as a conscious verb.

I don't think it's wrong, though, to say "I love you" without meaning THIS, because the word love has different meanings. As long as you both know what you mean. My boyfriend and I are not in this deep type of love I just described, but we do love each other, on a lighter level. My best friend and I love each other in another sense that includes that deep appreciation... but we don't feel the need to always remind each other. It's simply a fact of our friendship that goes undiscussed.

I've said kind of a lot here, but yes. There you go.

What Is Love is a crappy Techno Song

What is love, love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more...
What is love.....


damn you for getting to it before me...lol


who doesn't love absolutly horrible songs?

<bitter>

Love is a lie perpetuated by the capitalist media to obligate you to give other people gifts and circulate money out of your wallet and into their pockets. The capitalist paradigm uses this concept of love against us, baiting us with it as we bait fish with worms on a hook.

</bitter>

<bitter>
Love is a lie perpetuated by the capitalist media to obligate you to give other people gifts and circulate money out of your wallet and into their pockets. The capitalist paradigm uses this concept of love against us, baiting us with it as we bait fish with worms on a hook.
</bitter>
That isn't love, that's lust being disguised as love and is the most destructive force there is to real love.

how can one describe any emotion? no picture is brought to mind, only personal reflection upon the emotion. i say "love", and you bring to mind your experiences, or your hopes in it. i say "hate" and you bring to the table only what you know of it. i say "horse" and you picture it, clear as day (assuming you have seen a horse). i can even use adjectives to nail it down to the color, and the measurements, the blah, and the blah... it's all measurable!... but emotion does not work that way.

i say "i'm stressed" and you think of the stresses in your own life. you are reminded of the emotion. it's the only way you can comprehend it in your own mind. it's not a picture, it's an experience. maybe that's why when we hear of somebody's emotions we say "i understand"... and they get frustrated because we don't. we have our concept of the emotion, but we don't have theirs'.

mug.. friendship. two story brick house with a chimney on the left side. lonliness. fire.

which of these, if drawn (and putting talent aside, cause mine would look more like little sticks scattered on a page), would resemble what the rest of the world drew?

communication, is seeing a picture in your own mind and finding a way to re-create that same picture in another's mind. no, no, REALLY, you don't understand! what i'm really trying to say is... <--- you get the point. i could continue elaborating, but you get the picture (lol, huh, so that's where that came from)

Here's what I wrote on love almost two years ago.. really should've written another draft of it by now, but I've been struggling with a severe lack of motivation and will to write for quite a while, so rare moments of inspiration like this rarely get followed up on...

Will you be mine? I hope the answer is no. You should not have to give yourself to me, or anyone for that matter. You are not a possession, something for someone else to own, even if it’s through the bond of love. That isn’t love, not true love. True love is honest desire, the desire to help, to help improve, to comfort, to protect, to satisfy. True love is one thing the belief in God can help teach. True love is selflessness and without expectation, to forget your own concerns to provide for another. True love can only survive if nurtured both ways. True love is infinite.

The idea of “I’m yours, you’re mine” is perhaps one of the most subtly destructive thoughts to true love’s existence. It’s suggestive of possession. Possessions are easily taken for granted. Your loved one becomes yours. She (or he) will always be there. You expect her to be there. You expect her to meet your expectations of her. You forget that it’s not about you. It is not “will you be mine?” it is “will you share you life with me?” Not “I’m yours” but “let me share my life with you.” For that is what it is, sharing your lives together, not having joint ownership thereof.

You must not be with her for what she provides you, must not stay simply because you’re afraid to be alone, or because you already have her and doubt you could find better anyways. The honest desire to be with her is essential, but it can only be there if you care more for her than yourself. Place her concerns, her well-being, her goals, her wants, her desires, her dreams, her life, in front of your own. This is not to forget your own life completely, but to make sure she is provided for before yourself.

For many people, this requires turning to God. For He is all loving, all forgiving, but if only you believe and repent and devote your life to serving Him. But love of God is just the second step. Learn to love yourself, learn to love God, learn to love all of God’s creations, then devote yourself to the ones you love. That is a part of love, devoted service. This is not answering to every beck and call, but support, comfort, companionship, understanding. Serve your loved one in anyway that you believe will help them improve or ease their restless souls, and in return, you should be able to rely on his or her devotion to you. That is how true love is found.

To devote yourself to the ones you love is to take all your selfish desires and project them out onto others, not by fulfilling yours, but by fulfilling theirs’. You must take all the love you have for yourself and project it onto others, namely, your wife or husband and/or children, as well as your parents and closest friends, and ideally, everyone and everything. This requires you to give up personal satisfaction in order to please your loved ones. True love has no place for selfishness. What do you expect of your loved one? The answer? Nothing. You can only expect yourself to love her, and hope that she loves you in return. Expectations placed on your loved one is how selfishness reveals itself, and you must break these expectations in order to do this. You cannot expect her to be faithful; you cannot allow jealousy to taint your love. You cannot expect her to do something for you. You cannot expect her not to do something she wants to do. You must allow her to be herself. You must allow her to keep her life. You must be there to fill the holes she cannot fill herself. You must complete her, not to try to use her to fulfill yourself.

But most important of all, everything mentioned so far must go both ways. For you to give up yourself for her requires her to give up herself for you. True love, no matter how strong, can never survive if it is not returned; no soul has enough to love both itself and another, not for long. It is these one-sided relationships that are the most destructive to a loving soul, because using someone’s love in this way will certainly lead to its harm, corrupting it and twisting a person’s perception as to what love truly is. And indeed, it can already be seen how this is true. Love is an all too common and frivolous word today often confused for simple lust, which is exactly what love becomes when used to fulfill your own desires, and most relationships are rarely expected to last, divorce practically seen as a common, every-day necessity of life.

But when true love is nurtured and returned and built upon, it is infinite, it is truly loving God Himself, and it is the only way to heaven, whether up above or on earth itself. When your love is focused on the ones you love and not yourself, it can always provide for more, but only as long as the ones you love also have their love focused on the ones they love. When you love and support everyone else and everyone else loves and supports you, only then can everyone be truly loved and supported, and it is this ever-expanding love that surrounds and connects everyone to everything that unlocks the gates of heaven.

Don't worry about editing it. Some things are better left unedited, and I believe that's particularly true of that piece.

That's brilliant.

self-disinterested benevolence - That is my definition.

That isn't love, that's lust being disguised as love and is the most destructive force there is to real love.
There is no lust in that, friend. There is only emptiness. The emptiness of being told by everyone, person and corporation, that without another person to love you are NOTHING. Why do you think single people are so unhappy around Christmas, Valentine's, Thanksgiving? It's because that is when the media decides to guilt-trip you into wanting a partner, to make you think that you are completely worthless and a failure at existance itself if you are without.

It is not lust. It is obligation.

Love is a verb... a word that is defined by action. When you love somebody, it is a conscious decision to do so, not a feeling. You choose to love rather than simply 'feeling' it... at least that's the way it should be.

'Tis one of the best sonnets, yes. I still want to twap my English professor for pointing out though that what Shakespear was talking about in 116 wasn't love but errections. Now I too can't read this without breaking into giggles.I officially HATE you now. damn

What is love?

Love is simply lust with a new label slapped on to legitimise it, an attempt at saying that actually you don't only want to get under this other person's clothes.

Love is not the great, noble thing that countless generations of people more eloquent than I have written about, for this is merely another attempt to perpetuate the lie. They claim that love is more than it appears, more than a physical, primitive attraction to the most physically attractive woman/man that you can see. For all their finely spun words and delicate phrasing, they are wrong. A good personality is an assortment of qualities that one looks for in a friend, not a lover. I do not claim that it is impossible to be both a friend and a lover to a person, and they the same to you, I merely claim that there is a distinct difference between love and friendship, a distinction that foolish romantics enjoy blurring.

Love is only there for certain people, after all. If love was what many people believe it to be, there would be no distinction on physical attractiveness. People would be just as happy taking the acne-ridden geek as the Adonis/Venus-like paradigm of physical attractiveness at the other end of the scale. And indeed the geek may have friends. They may even try to convince themselves that they are attracted to him, out of a mixture of pity and their own bloated ego. "Lets prove that we aren't shallow and superficial!", cry the multitudes, and yet they avoid the unattractive yet nice, funny, intelligent person while falling at the feet of the beauty with not only the looks but the personality of a statue.

Finally, love is a weapon with an edge so sharp that it not only cuts through flesh, it can slice through personality, self-worth. Those are given love are safe from its effects, but should those deemed unattractive even attempt to wield it, they are impaled. Every beauty's pedestal has been made from the blood of those deemed unworthy of them.

And the faceless corporations are as adept swordmasters as any, using love with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel to sell product upon product, meanwhile making those incapable of acquiring love feel even more worthless than they did already. They are made outcasts, branded by society and doomed to drift through life alone.

Bitter, maybe, but correct.

self-disinterested benevolence - That is my definition.

Okay, let me rephrase...

Caring for someone else more than you care for yourself both in thought and in action.

What is love?

Love is simply lust with a new label slapped on to legitimise it, an attempt at saying that actually you don't only want to get under this other person's clothes.

Love is not the great, noble thing that countless generations of people more eloquent than I have written about, for this is merely another attempt to perpetuate the lie. They claim that love is more than it appears, more than a physical, primitive attraction to the most physically attractive woman/man that you can see. For all their finely spun words and delicate phrasing, they are wrong. A good personality is an assortment of qualities that one looks for in a friend, not a lover. I do not claim that it is impossible to be both a friend and a lover to a person, and they the same to you, I merely claim that there is a distinct difference between love and friendship, a distinction that foolish romantics enjoy blurring.

Love is only there for certain people, after all. If love was what many people believe it to be, there would be no distinction on physical attractiveness. People would be just as happy taking the acne-ridden geek as the Adonis/Venus-like paradigm of physical attractiveness at the other end of the scale. And indeed the geek may have friends. They may even try to convince themselves that they are attracted to him, out of a mixture of pity and their own bloated ego. "Lets prove that we aren't shallow and superficial!", cry the multitudes, and yet they avoid the unattractive yet nice, funny, intelligent person while falling at the feet of the beauty with not only the looks but the personality of a statue.

Finally, love is a weapon with an edge so sharp that it not only cuts through flesh, it can slice through personality, self-worth. Those are given love are safe from its effects, but should those deemed unattractive even attempt to wield it, they are impaled. Every beauty's pedestal has been made from the blood of those deemed unworthy of them.

And the faceless corporations are as adept swordmasters as any, using love with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel to sell product upon product, meanwhile making those incapable of acquiring love feel even more worthless than they did already. They are made outcasts, branded by society and doomed to drift through life alone.

Bitter, maybe, but correct.
Dear God, you are so right. I could not have said it better myself.

You'll know what it is when you see it :D

how can one describe any emotion? no picture is brought to mind, only personal reflection upon the emotion. i say "love", and you bring to mind your experiences, or your hopes in it. i say "hate" and you bring to the table only what you know of it. i say "horse" and you picture it, clear as day (assuming you have seen a horse). i can even use adjectives to nail it down to the color, and the measurements, the blah, and the blah... it's all measurable!... but emotion does not work that way.

i say "i'm stressed" and you think of the stresses in your own life. you are reminded of the emotion. it's the only way you can comprehend it in your own mind. it's not a picture, it's an experience. maybe that's why when we hear of somebody's emotions we say "i understand"... and they get frustrated because we don't. we have our concept of the emotion, but we don't have theirs'.

mug.. friendship. two story brick house with a chimney on the left side. lonliness. fire.

which of these, if drawn (and putting talent aside, cause mine would look more like little sticks scattered on a page), would resemble what the rest of the world drew?

communication, is seeing a picture in your own mind and finding a way to re-create that same picture in another's mind. no, no, REALLY, you don't understand! what i'm really trying to say is... <--- you get the point. i could continue elaborating, but you get the picture (lol, huh, so that's where that came from)
That's why we have poetry: metaphor, to create the pictures of emotion.

What is love?

Love is simply lust with a new label slapped on to legitimise it, an attempt at saying that actually you don't only want to get under this other person's clothes.

Love is not the great, noble thing that countless generations of people more eloquent than I have written about, for this is merely another attempt to perpetuate the lie. They claim that love is more than it appears, more than a physical, primitive attraction to the most physically attractive woman/man that you can see. For all their finely spun words and delicate phrasing, they are wrong. A good personality is an assortment of qualities that one looks for in a friend, not a lover. I do not claim that it is impossible to be both a friend and a lover to a person, and they the same to you, I merely claim that there is a distinct difference between love and friendship, a distinction that foolish romantics enjoy blurring.

Love is only there for certain people, after all. If love was what many people believe it to be, there would be no distinction on physical attractiveness. People would be just as happy taking the acne-ridden geek as the Adonis/Venus-like paradigm of physical attractiveness at the other end of the scale. And indeed the geek may have friends. They may even try to convince themselves that they are attracted to him, out of a mixture of pity and their own bloated ego. "Lets prove that we aren't shallow and superficial!", cry the multitudes, and yet they avoid the unattractive yet nice, funny, intelligent person while falling at the feet of the beauty with not only the looks but the personality of a statue.

Finally, love is a weapon with an edge so sharp that it not only cuts through flesh, it can slice through personality, self-worth. Those are given love are safe from its effects, but should those deemed unattractive even attempt to wield it, they are impaled. Every beauty's pedestal has been made from the blood of those deemed unworthy of them.

And the faceless corporations are as adept swordmasters as any, using love with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel to sell product upon product, meanwhile making those incapable of acquiring love feel even more worthless than they did already. They are made outcasts, branded by society and doomed to drift through life alone.

Bitter, maybe, but correct.
In other words, you don't know love.

In other words, you don't know love.
It's so easy to write something cynical and abnormal off completely. He said himself that what we think of as "love" is actually a carefully crafted blend of lust and friendship. As a reverend/photographer/psychology student, I can say that psychologically he is exactly right, the best "type" of love is a blend of mutual friendship with a healthy balance of the physical.

Also, he may have tasted love, but has been betrayed by it. Such was the case with me, so I'd prefer you wouldn't judge us as unknowledgable just because we disagree with you.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails

Anyone disagree

Anyone disagree
Watch Jerry Springer.

Love fails.

I officially HATE you now. damn
My apologies. _/(-_-)\_

Love is an emptiness that stabs you in the back and kicks you when you down!

Watch Jerry Springer.

Love fails.

I dont think in those occations its love that fails itself. Its that to the person something has come of importance above the love and they have forgoten just how valuable it is.

Also, he may have tasted love, but has been betrayed by it.

Congratulations! Have a cookie. :p

I dont think in those occations its love that fails itself. Its that to the person something has come of importance above the love and they have forgoten just how valuable it is.
But if love itself is merely the sum of the emotions of these people, and love has disappeared, then the solidifying bond of love is gone and love has failed because of the actions of those formerly in love.

Love is not some omnipotent force floating around the stratosphere, it's a series of emotions and endorphins and neurons in everyday human beings. And as we know, humans change if nothing else.

*munches his cookie sublimely*

love is like being shot several times in the knee caps

love is a chemical imbalance in the brain similar to that caused by chocolate....

mm chocolate... oh well bye!

love is like being shot several times in the knee caps
does it taste like chocolate?

What is love. Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more...

It's so easy to write something cynical and abnormal off completely. He said himself that what we think of as "love" is actually a carefully crafted blend of lust and friendship. As a reverend/photographer/psychology student, I can say that psychologically he is exactly right, the best "type" of love is a blend of mutual friendship with a healthy balance of the physical.

Also, he may have tasted love, but has been betrayed by it. Such was the case with me, so I'd prefer you wouldn't judge us as unknowledgable just because we disagree with you.
I stand by what I said, in all its entendre. The author was saying to us, "You don't know love", as well as demonstrating that he or she does not. That is the message I got. Incorrect perhaps, but not bitter.

Don't worry about editing it. Some things are better left unedited, and I believe that's particularly true of that piece.

That's brilliant.
Yeah, I don't want to change it much at all, it just seems kind of patchy and poorly structured and feel it could be reworded a little better, but then, I admit that I'm my own worst critic when it comes to my writings.

I just wish I could find someone who'd let me love them like that and maybe even grant me the same in return, but I just can't impose myself on a girl like that and I seem to have issues of feeling inadequate in almost anything I do, whether it comes to writing or trying to get a girl interested in me. And no, not matter how much Enzyme would have me believe other wise, taking a pill to make my dick bigger isn't going to solve any of my problems in that regard.
There is no lust in that, friend. There is only emptiness. The emptiness of being told by everyone, person and corporation, that without another person to love you are NOTHING. Why do you think single people are so unhappy around Christmas, Valentine's, Thanksgiving? It's because that is when the media decides to guilt-trip you into wanting a partner, to make you think that you are completely worthless and a failure at existance itself if you are without.

It is not lust. It is obligation.
No, I see it more as a reflection of a society built upon the ideal of personal gain. You no longer actually have to care about someone, you just have to buy them shit to make up for using and abusing them for your own benefit.
What is love?

Love is simply lust with a new label slapped on to legitimise it, an attempt at saying that actually you don't only want to get under this other person's clothes.

Love is not the great, noble thing that countless generations of people more eloquent than I have written about, for this is merely another attempt to perpetuate the lie. They claim that love is more than it appears, more than a physical, primitive attraction to the most physically attractive woman/man that you can see. For all their finely spun words and delicate phrasing, they are wrong. A good personality is an assortment of qualities that one looks for in a friend, not a lover. I do not claim that it is impossible to be both a friend and a lover to a person, and they the same to you, I merely claim that there is a distinct difference between love and friendship, a distinction that foolish romantics enjoy blurring.

Love is only there for certain people, after all. If love was what many people believe it to be, there would be no distinction on physical attractiveness. People would be just as happy taking the acne-ridden geek as the Adonis/Venus-like paradigm of physical attractiveness at the other end of the scale. And indeed the geek may have friends. They may even try to convince themselves that they are attracted to him, out of a mixture of pity and their own bloated ego. "Lets prove that we aren't shallow and superficial!", cry the multitudes, and yet they avoid the unattractive yet nice, funny, intelligent person while falling at the feet of the beauty with not only the looks but the personality of a statue.

Finally, love is a weapon with an edge so sharp that it not only cuts through flesh, it can slice through personality, self-worth. Those are given love are safe from its effects, but should those deemed unattractive even attempt to wield it, they are impaled. Every beauty's pedestal has been made from the blood of those deemed unworthy of them.

And the faceless corporations are as adept swordmasters as any, using love with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel to sell product upon product, meanwhile making those incapable of acquiring love feel even more worthless than they did already. They are made outcasts, branded by society and doomed to drift through life alone.

Bitter, maybe, but correct.
When love is used in an attempt to fulfill yourself, yes, you are correct, it is simply lust with a new label placed on it in order to get what you want from the other person, but true love isn't about getting what you want, it's about giving, and if you give only because you want something in return, it's still about getting what you want.
Love is a verb... a word that is defined by action. When you love somebody, it is a conscious decision to do so, not a feeling. You choose to love rather than simply 'feeling' it... at least that's the way it should be.
See, this is someone who understands. Lust is an emotion, base and uncontrollable, a natural desire to want something for yourself, but love is a decision. Lust is what tells you you want to have sex with that girl you see across the way, but love is what tells you not to have sex with her because it would betray the person who has trusted you with her heart. Lust may motivate you to take a girl out for dinner and dancing in the hopes that you'll be sharing the same bed that night, but love could motivate you to needlessly risk your own life to save hers.

I can very much see why you'd think that's what love is because I se the exact same things, but whereas you look at them and say "this is what love is, just thinly disguised lust and nothing more" I look at them and say "this is what love isn't, this is just thinly disguised lust and nothing more." And it is seeing through the perpetuated lie that I came to realize the truth rather than simply accepting the perpetuated lie as the truth. Lust is easy and self-gratifying, it's no wonder most people settle for that instead of taking the effort to actually love someone one, because loving someone requires hard work and offers no guaruntee that the person you love will love you in return, which can indeed hurt so extremely much that you want nothing more than to die, but I have yet to find a greater sense of fulfillment than when it is returned. Sadly to this point, I've only ever had it returned to me online, but I know that no amount of meaningless physical/sexual contact could even come close to comparing what what shared. Meaningless sex holds very little appeal to me. Sure, like any healthy young male with access to the internet, I watch entirely too much porn and get myself off constantly, but the thought of using another person as little more than a replacement for my hand just seems wrong and degrading, and as much as I desperately want to have sex with someone, I want even more someone I can spend the rest of my life with, just someone I can have sex with isn't enough.

So yes, a lot of people may act like love is little more than a justification for lust, but there are also those who actually understand why in Christianity love is considered a virtue and lust a sin.

I'll save the details my personal experiences that lead to my little piece on love and beyond for another post.

Unless I am mistaken, "love", in the romantic sense, is an emotional dependence upon another person.

Love is putting another before yourself.

I was reading the first few pages of the Evolution is Wrong thread and came across this little blurb:

"love is just lust showing itself a bit stronger."

Which seemed to confirm my suspicion that many people in the world, especially here in America with the "every man for himself" attitude it promotes, seem to recognize little distinction between the two when as far as I'm concerned they're polar opposites.

So the question is, what do you believe love to be? What does it mean to you when you say you love someone?
Love and lust aren't "polar opposites," any more than joy and laughter are.

Laughter is one way to express joy. There are other ways to express joy, and laughter can also be used to express things that are not joy.

Lust is one way that love can be expressed. I lust after my beloved on a regular basis. Sometimes I'm just lusting because he's lust-worthy, but sometimes I'm lusting after him precisely because he is my beloved. He wouldn't be my beloved if I didn't crave him on at least a few levels. :D

Lust definitely isn't the opposite of love. They often go hand in hand, I mean, you can love someone and still want to take them back to your place and have your way with them.

At any rate, I think that love is knowing who someone is, deep down inside and still liking them, or at least that's a component of it. I dunno, it really depends what sort of love you're talking about. I love my sisters, I love my cats, I love a lot of my friends, they all mean different things.

Love is what you people have. I'm too busy for these kind of things. I mean, if I got into a relationship, what would happen to the time I set aside for eating cold ravioli out of the can, sitting in my underwear, and sleeping for sixteen hours a day? Oh, and coming here, too.

Oh, and I love that song.

The following three (3) quotes are all by Jim Morrison (The Doors) and everything in blue is my interpretation of LOVE!!!

“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”

“We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict.”

“That's what real love amounts to; letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending- performing. You get to love your pretence. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act.”

I was reading the first few pages of the Evolution is Wrong thread and came across this little blurb:

"love is just lust showing itself a bit stronger."

Which seemed to confirm my suspicion that many people in the world, especially here in America with the "every man for himself" attitude it promotes, seem to recognize little distinction between the two when as far as I'm concerned they're polar opposites.

So the question is, what do you believe love to be? What does it mean to you when you say you love someone?

i think it means devotion to the cause of always putting the one you love first, and doing whatever it takes (within some reason) for them to be happy. its a connection, a deeper understanding and friendship than 'non-love' relationships. its someone making you feel like a better person and bringing out in you the best things about you, and you doing the same for them. its a willingness to support each other through anything if only to see them smile again :)


sounds kinda soppy but tis what i think/feel :fluffle:


love is probably experienced differently for all people/couples

Love is a chemical imbalance in the brain, triggered by pheromones picked up using the sense of smell, causing a surplus of dopamine to be produced. The result stimulates greater serotonin production and something else with a really long scientific name; this can sustain the perceived feeling even after the dopamine has broken down and been fully absorbed (which can take up to three years). Its stick around long enough to take care of the children until they are ready to go out into the world and procreate. Homosexual love can be explained by a hypothetical recessive gene that makes the brain more sympathetic to pheromones of the same sex. Even if the pheromonal reactions are directed towards infertile people, the sexual instinct is still inherent, implying that the purpose is to procreate even if such procreation is not possible.

What I don't get is why people make such a fuss about it. It's nothing special, just one of nature's constructions to ensure the survival of the human race. If you marvel at it you may as well marvel at the inner workings of the circulatory system, or the muscles, or the electrochemical neural impulses.

Love is putting another before yourself.
Holy crap, you dug up this thread after 1.5 YEARS?!?

Holy crap, you dug up this thread after 1.5 YEARS?!?

holy shit! :eek:

i didn't even see that :p

holy shit! :eek:

i didn't even see that :p

Hehe, yeah, me neither at first. I only noticed when I started reading it from the beginning and saw "Sinuhue" had posted and was all "Wait, did she get her old nation name back? But she was deleted. WTF?!".

Well, what you wrote still made me feel all warm and fuzzy, so eh. :p

Love is a chemical imbalance in the brain, triggered by pheromones picked up using the sense of smell, causing a surplus of dopamine to be produced. The result stimulates greater serotonin production and something else with a really long scientific name; this can sustain the perceived feeling even after the dopamine has broken down and been fully absorbed (which can take up to three years). Its stick around long enough to take care of the children until they are ready to go out into the world and procreate. Homosexual love can be explained by a hypothetical recessive gene that makes the brain more sympathetic to pheromones of the same sex. Even if the pheromonal reactions are directed towards infertile people, the sexual instinct is still inherent, implying that the purpose is to procreate even if such procreation is not possible.

What I don't get is why people make such a fuss about it. It's nothing special, just one of nature's constructions to ensure the survival of the human race. If you marvel at it you may as well marvel at the inner workings of the circulatory system, or the muscles, or the electrochemical neural impulses.

if it's something that's meant to happen, why does that make it an "imbalance"? Or are you just using "chemical imbalance" the way most people use it, i.e. to explain away any human behaviour they can't empathise with themselves?

To me, Love is when you know that you and that special someone can go through anything together. Death, fire, fights, etc., and no matter what happens, you'll always be there for your partner, and vice versa. You may see imperfection in yourself, and you may be afraid that your partner will see those imperfection, but in fact, your partner loves you, and either accepts those imperfection or don't see them, and for some reason think that you are perfect. Love is when you have this...connection with your partner. You can just instantly know what they are thinking, or feeling, and it may seem strange and funny at the same time because well it's like you're sharing the same brain. Love is when your partner fills every aspect of the relationship perfectly. You can talk to your partner about anything, y'all always have something to talk about, you're there for each other emotionally, and you care for one another. Even though you may have sexual thoughts about your partner, that's not the most important aspect to you. What is the most important aspect is your partner as a whole. Love is when you and your partner just click, for some odd reaons out of like billions of people on this Earth, you two click, you can't explain it, you don't know why, but you really don't care. Love is when you're willing to do anything for your partner to make him/her smile, and to make sure she is happy. That is what love is to me.

I am love.

I am love.

Hey cupid, first off, thanks for Leah, but what about the girls I've dated before! Damn you and your arrows! :p

Hey cupid, first off, thanks for Leah, but what about the girls I've dated before! Damn you and your arrows! :p

Don't worry about the other girls.
What's most important, is Leah.

Don't worry about the other girls.
What's most important, is Leah.

Yea but couldn't you've at least spared me the one psycho, and the one fundie?

Yea but couldn't you've at least spared me the one psycho, and the one fundie?

Tis called experience.
Don't you just appreciate Leah that much more now? :)

Tis called experience.
Don't you just appreciate Leah that much more now? :)

Hmm, you know, actually I do. :)

if it's something that's meant to happen, why does that make it an "imbalance"? Or are you just using "chemical imbalance" the way most people use it, i.e. to explain away any human behaviour they can't empathise with themselves?

It's a "chemical imbalance" because the chemical production in the brain is different from the way it is in unaffected people.

I also call social-anxiety disorder and depression chemical imbalances, even though I've been diagnosed with both.

Don't sound so bitter just because a scientific explanation's been found for phenomena you've been brought up to believe are spiritual and not related to actual, material happenings. Nothing is separate from matter, after all. Thoughts, imagination, colour, &c. are all caused by electrical impulses along specific tangents, which in turn consist of packets of photons moving at different velocities and affecting different atoms, etc. Love is 100% physical, simply because emotions are also 100% physical.

~ Czar "who formerly did not believe in love at all and since has done some research and figured out what it really is" das

Hmm, you know, actually I do. :)

Good stuff! :eek:


(Question, are you a guy or a girl? I'm confused by the SpamQueen Advisor title you have under your nation's name.)

Good stuff! :eek:


(Question, are you a guy or a girl? I'm confused by the SpamQueen Advisor title you have under your nation's name.)

I am a guy, and yea that does cause some confusion.

I am a guy, and yea that does cause some confusion.

Ha ha. That's cool.
Where do they come up with these titles anyway?

Love is a chemical imbalance in the brain, triggered by pheromones picked up using the sense of smell, causing a surplus of dopamine to be produced. The result stimulates greater serotonin production and something else with a really long scientific name; this can sustain the perceived feeling even after the dopamine has broken down and been fully absorbed (which can take up to three years). Its stick around long enough to take care of the children until they are ready to go out into the world and procreate. Homosexual love can be explained by a hypothetical recessive gene that makes the brain more sympathetic to pheromones of the same sex. Even if the pheromonal reactions are directed towards infertile people, the sexual instinct is still inherent, implying that the purpose is to procreate even if such procreation is not possible.

What I don't get is why people make such a fuss about it. It's nothing special, just one of nature's constructions to ensure the survival of the human race. If you marvel at it you may as well marvel at the inner workings of the circulatory system, or the muscles, or the electrochemical neural impulses.

At the moment, I'll agree with this guy here.