To love or be loved?

[Xtinas_Girlfriend]

There have been many times in my life that I have loved with all that I am. Just once I'd like to know what it feels like to have it returned.

I agree completely with you. I love so hard...and perhaps too easily. Maybe I'd pick be loved just to see what it was like for someone to love me that much. I'm not sure where this is from, but I got it from one of my friends: "To be loved, be worthy to be loved." (or something along those lines...)...

But I think I'm worthy? At least, I thought I was.

 

[Jo_Huntz]

I've been in a situation where I loved someone a lot more than he loved me and it was awful. I've also been in a situation where someone else loved me and I wasn't interested at all, again it was awful.

I've also been in a situation where I loved someone and they loved me just as much and it was amazing. I've been lucky enough to find this twice.

I fall in love very quickly, usually in less than a month and I know straight away if they're my sort of person. Loving is easy finding someone else to love me used to be the hard part. Fuck, I cannot pick one or the other... I'd just keep babbling and re-writing everything. Loving and being loved both have strength and validity.

 

[only_more_so]

I heard Nat King Cole's 'Unforgettable' on the radio this morning:

Unforgettable in every way
And forever more, that's how you'll stay
That's why, darling, it's incredible
That someone so unforgettable
Thinks that I am unforgettable too

It's a popular wedding song, and was played at a friend's wedding recently for the couple's first dance. It got me thinking...

What's more important to you - to love or be loved? to desire or be desired? to think your partner is unforgettable or that your partner think you are unforgettable?

I don't see that love has anything to do with being unforgettable. Alright, that was hyperbole, but my point is that while love might cause someone to be remembered, so might your first kiss, or your first sex partner, or the first girl to make a boy think girls aren't icky. Or there is the person who you saw only a few times, but who lingers in your memory. There is a great quote from Citizen Kane about such a thing:

"A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn't think he'd remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn't see me at all, but I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl."

Answering your question isn't incredibly straightforward for me. I remember in church the pastor talking about the different Greek words that got translated into the English word "love". Love for family, is different than love for a lover. Although a lover can also be loved as family. Also, how many times have you heard someone say they love an actor or a rock star, which is just as genuine an emotion as other types of love.

As for desire, I would definately prefer to be desired. Call it male ego, but at least partly it is because being desired is a turn-on.

 

[sexualbeing]

I really cant choose its always a wonderful feeling to be loved by someone as well as the feeling of your heart melting when your in love with someone so both veiws are wondeful

 

[Belle_Ringer]

I've been in a situation where I loved someone a lot more than he loved me and it was awful. I've also been in a situation where someone else loved me and I wasn't interested at all, again it was awful.

I won't say I was totally uninterested, but I also have experienced both of these - or close enough anyway. Both were so hard on everyone involved. I still would rather be the one doing the loving. I feel so horrible having to push someone away who cares for me, especially knowing how many others are so wanting exactly what I am letting pass me by.

 

[M's girl]

...... Recently I learned I am considered to be a needy person. It makes me sound kind of neurotic.

I have learned that most people who consider other people to be needy really don't know how to give. Very often they are the "takers": absorbing other people's love / attention / devotion without thinking about it twice, because the "getting" mysterically DOES feel natural to them. When they have to start giving there is not much they can offer .... When people start hinting to them about that they will consider the other person to be needy.

Of course there ARE exceptions. I don't know you very well but from what I know I would see if my statement fits the person who said that about you before I would worry too much about being needy....

 

[M's girl]

They are linked in my mind. I need to believe that I am loved, need to feel it and know it, in order to feel secure in the relationship. It's not enough for someone to say 'I love you' if their actions cause me to question whether they love me or not, or have me wondering what their 'love' really means. If I'm insecure about it, then all my neuroses start acting up. If I feel loved, then I am much more open and put more into the relationship.

Very true. Works the same way for me.

To answer your initial question: I guess both are equally important but feel different. I doubt if people who don't know how to surrender to love can really, truelly love someone else. Because true love is about trust and believe and surrendering yourself.

I know how much I can love someone and when I do it's always 200% (...) and with all my heart. I have often wondered if that same love was returned; mostly because of where I just quoted you. I certainly need to hear "I love you" every once in a while, but when the other persons actions do not match with the lines I do not believe them and then "I love you" can even sound like a lie....

There is no greater feeling than being absolutely 100% certain of someones love and commitment for you and towards you.

 

[Magic_Dick]

To love is the most important of all things. I was incomplete before I found someone to love. Sounds cheesy, but it's true.