What is love?

[StillStunned]

A very profound discussion at 1:45:

 

[onehitwanda]

“Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.”
― Matt Groening

 

[Bramblethorn]

How do you distinguish love from...

Friendly affection?

Sexual attraction?

Infatuation?

One of the biggest benefits for me of being poly is that I don't need to draw sharp lines between those states. My ex and I can say "I love you" to one another, and I don't have to decide whether that's an "as a friend" thing or "as a lover" because the latter wouldn't be breaking any commitments to my partner. Maybe one of these years he'll come visit (he lives a loooong way away) or I'll go over there, and then we'll figure out whether we're sharing a bed or what. But I can just let it be what it is without having to work through stuff like "well I'm in a relationship with her, so I can't also be in a relationship with him, so I can't tell him I love him."

I used to get pretty serious crushes on people, which was mostly a miserable state of affairs, and in hindsight not what I'd call "love" but I thought so at the time.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Yeah, good luck coming up with an answer

 

[AG31]

Selflessness. I think that's when it's a good love.

Ah. This makes me think I might have specified erotic love, of the three classical types, eros, philia, agape. But eros is just sexual attraction. Still, selflessness, agape, is, for sure, good love, but not the kind I had in mind here. I've edited my post to say "being in love."

 

[AG31]

I've edited my post to say "being in love."

 

[AG31]

No, that's being in love. It's a different thing.

Yes, and that's why I edited my post to say "being in love."

 

[SimonDoom]

One problem with the question is the inherent limitations in the word itself. We try to use it for too many things, often all at once. People have tried since the time of Plato to break it down. One common list includes:

Eros. Erotic or sexual love. Obviously, central to Literotica.

Philia. Friendship. Yup, lots of that here. Lovers should be friends.

Storge. That love between child and parent. Less sure how this might play out in I&T.

Agape. ‘General’ love, love for mankind and the planet and all people. Goodwill. Charity, old perception.

Ludus. ‘Playful’ love, investigating, exploring, defining. Games, dancing. Fun times.

Pragma. ‘Practical’ love, as to nation or God or making a long-term relationship work.

Needless to say, that’s covering it at breakneck speed, oversimplification writ large. Nor are they mutually exclusive. It does show however that that simple word can be well-stretched. FWIW.

I think this is well said, and you've taught me some new words! Love takes on many forms and dimensions, and there's no sense, in my book, in trying to reduce it to one essential formula or definition.

The love I feel for my kids is not the same as the love I feel for my parents, or for a romantic partner. I feel no need to try to boil the concept down to its essentials. I don't believe in essentials.

 

[AG31]

One problem with the question is the inherent limitations in the word itself. We try to use it for too many things, often all at once. People have tried since the time of Plato to break it down. One common list includes:

Eros. Erotic or sexual love. Obviously, central to Literotica.

Philia. Friendship. Yup, lots of that here. Lovers should be friends.

Storge. That love between child and parent. Less sure how this might play out in I&T.

Agape. ‘General’ love, love for mankind and the planet and all people. Goodwill. Charity, old perception.

Ludus. ‘Playful’ love, investigating, exploring, defining. Games, dancing. Fun times.

Pragma. ‘Practical’ love, as to nation or God or making a long-term relationship work.

Needless to say, that’s covering it at breakneck speed, oversimplification writ large. Nor are they mutually exclusive. It does show however that that simple word can be well-stretched. FWIW.

Gee, I didn't know there were so many. I just knew eros, philia and agape. I've edited my post to say "being in love."

 

[nice90sguy]

One problem with the question is the inherent limitations in the word itself. We try to use it for too many things, often all at once. People have tried since the time of Plato to break it down. One common list includes:

Eros. Erotic or sexual love. Obviously, central to Literotica.

Philia. Friendship. Yup, lots of that here. Lovers should be friends.

Storge. That love between child and parent. Less sure how this might play out in I&T.

Agape. ‘General’ love, love for mankind and the planet and all people. Goodwill. Charity, old perception.

Ludus. ‘Playful’ love, investigating, exploring, defining. Games, dancing. Fun times.

Pragma. ‘Practical’ love, as to nation or God or making a long-term relationship work.

Needless to say, that’s covering it at breakneck speed, oversimplification writ large. Nor are they mutually exclusive. It does show however that that simple word can be well-stretched. FWIW.

A "crush", or "unrequited love", is, to me, distinct from Ἔρως.

I've have crushes, some of them debilitating, replete with the physiological manifestations endlessly expounded by poets and pop music. That to me is what "being in love" feels like. I think calling it a "crush" is a cynical reminder that it won't last long. But, when I'm suffering from a crush, it feels eternal, and agonisingly bittersweet.

My wedding speech shocked people, because I spent most of it saying how hot I thought my wife was. Some people got it, while others were concerned that she'd married someone so shallow.

 

[AchtungNight]

If you think hate is powerful, try indifference. Of course, both these emotions don’t come up as often as love, yet both are easily discarded in favor of love when love appears. Love is impossible to predict and difficult to control. Many people have different definitions of it and what is appropriate for it. Personality is a factor in its expression and whether or not it is accepted. It has to flow both ways to really work.

 

[Priscilla_June]

Baby don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more.

 

[One_ping_only]

This song will be in my head all day now

 

[AlexBailey]

“Love is not enough, but it sure helps.”
-Sheldon B Kopp

 

[Mastered_again]

 

[THBGato]

nor philautia, either - love of oneself.

Ah, yes, I knew there was another one! I was too lazy to Google this morning.

 

[Yarglenurp]

I think the answer varies because different people love in fundamentally different ways and because those ways vary in terms of how they impact a person. As far as I know, I have never felt infatuation love, but my love for my partner has grown every day since we met because we keep doing things for each other.

Also, a wrench in the definition is that, far as I can tell, love can make two different people do diametrically opposite thing when put in the same situation. We can play the game of "that isn't love, it's lust/jealousy/etc." However, the possessor of the emotion would call it love.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

1 Corinthians 13:4 - 8

 

[AG31]

1 Corinthians 13:4 - 8

I don't think this describes being "in love."

 

[Lifestyle66]

What is love?



There’s a lot of unrequited love, and one-way love. So, I prefer the expression that “Love is a two-way street.”

All of those involving “love at first ‘SIGHT’” and other lustful one-way feelings are just that; one-way lust.

If the other person doesn't feel the same way, then think again. And it takes TIME to fully find out how the other ones truly FEELS about it.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I don't think this describes being "in love."

Again we trip over the meaning of ‘love’.

The passage is from a letter written by Saint Paul to a Christian community in Corinth, Greece. It was written in Greek and the specific word used is ‘agape’. Without trying to go crazy in terms of translation, ‘agape’ is a special subset of love. The King James Bible uses the word ‘charity’, which also looks a bit weird to us today because we think of that as being generous, as in giving money to charity.

What ‘agape’ refers to is a giving love, a love that gives without any expectation of return or reward, a love that can be given to any or all, even to one’s enemy. It is a love that continues to give even if it is rejected. It is toleration and acceptance and inclusivity, a general love, including a willingness to forgive.

More recent translations, including that given by CK54, use the word ‘love’ - and again we get confused. Think of what Paul meant when he wrote it, using the word ‘agape’, and it makes sense. It’s nothing to do with feeling affection for another person, it is an overarching attitude to all.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I just did.



When you love someone, set them free. Empower them. That is exactly what it is.

Hardly.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I don't think it's easily quantifiable, all this breaking it down and trying to dig deep is just scratching the surface.

 

[samhasstories]

Isn’t this why people write, and create art in general? If we could manage to capture concepts like love in pithy forum posts we all could have put down our pens and brushes years ago, congratulated ourselves on a job well done, and gone bowling or something.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Sometimes I think it's more helpful to think of "love" more as something one practices than as something one feels.

When I'm angry at somebody close to me, but I make the effort to work past that anger and talk things out - not trying to win, not trying to get them back for making me feel bad, trying to understand their perspective even though it'd be more comfortable just to wallow in my cranky feelings - that's a form of love. Getting up at two in the morning to clean up cat vomit so your partner doesn't have to, that's love even if nobody wrote a sonnet about it.