A youngster may never have been in love, and may not even know what it feels like. They may confuse love with all sorts of other feelings. Have they fallen in love or is it something more prosaic? Is it just a crush, an obsession, fondness, friendship, or simply lust? Asking other people may not help because it's such a personal experience and impossible to explain.
There are plenty of examples of youngsters who thought they were in love, rushed into marriage, and then a short time later realised it wasn't love at all and had to divorce.
An oldie like me however knows exactly what love is because I've been in love with Jenny for 43 years and the feeling is well established. I have no problem telling love from other similar feelings. When I fell for Jenny it was the first time I had been in love so it only gradually dawned on me that that's what it was (I didn't really love my parents, I appreciated everything they did for me but that was it).
Is it love if the feeling isn't reciprocated? That's something I'm not sure of even at my advanced age. I thought I was in love with a bookshop workmate but she never reciprocated so was that love or just a one-sided crush? And what about all those people who say they "love" a public figure - a show-biz celebrity or one of the Royals - even if they've never even met the person? How can that be any more than devotion or admiration?
What is love? It's complicated....
I was just about to type: It's complicated... and then you used that for your final line.
ReplyDeleteI love my dog - I'm not sure that that's reciprocated!
Sx
Ms Scarlet: I wonder? Dogs certainly show their owner constant devotion and desire to please. Doesn't that amount to love?
DeleteI was one of those young people who married too early only to divorce 3 years later. I think you can love someone who doesn't reciprocate. I have loved two men and know you can love one person in a different way from another. It's still love. It is complicated.
ReplyDeleteSandra: I'm sorry to hear of the divorce. But better to divorce than to put up with an impossible marriage. Yes, I guess you can love different people in different ways.
DeleteTrue love is when you each want what is best for the other and when you help each other be better people.
ReplyDeleteLinda
Linda: That's a good definition. Someone said that marriage (or love) means never giving up on the other person, whatever their faults.
DeleteNick, Saïd and I rushed in marriage after 3 month and are still in love and there is not such a difference between when we were young and now. I think love has many faces and is built on various conceptions. We have friends from India whose marriages were arranged by the families and may be it was luck but they grew together and loved each other. Concerning public people etc. I would call it may be admiration , a kind of respect but certainly not love. But as all your followers say : it's complicated and so private.
ReplyDeleteHannah
Hannah: Great that your quick marriage worked out okay. And yes, arranged marriages can often work out very well. Not sure public figures are respected. A lot of the comments they receive can be quite abusive and disrespectful.
DeleteLove is wanting the best for the other and acting to achieve it.
ReplyDeleteKylie: I think that's a part of it, but love goes so much deeper than our everyday actions.
DeleteI don't wish to be argumentative but what else is there, than the way we behave every single day?
DeleteThe person who made me feel most loved was available, made my highest good a priority even when it was challenging and uncomfortable, listened carefully, helped in practical ways and expected me to be the best version of myself.
He communicated it all through his actions
Kylie: Maybe you're right. But in that case, what's the difference between love and devotion?
DeleteFor me it's the person I know I want to be with and know it is reciprocal. Things have changed a lot in our lives, but that remains constant.
ReplyDeleteHelen: The person you want to be with - I'd go along with that.
DeleteThat's very true and love evolves over time when your with someone too. It feels deeper like you know what the other person is thinking and feeling also because you know each other so well.
ReplyDeleteMary: That's true, love evolves over time and the feeling gets deeper and deeper.
DeleteI married and then two months later I fell in love with another man and it shook the earth from under me.
ReplyDeleteI'm only now writing about it in a memoir.
XO
WWW
www: Wow, that's quite an upheaval. Two months and everything's up for grabs.
DeleteI’m surfeit means different things to different people.
ReplyDeleteSure it
DeleteBijoux: It does, but I think there's a clear difference between love and related feelings like devotion, obsession and friendship.
DeleteI once had a coffee mug with the inscription: We should love people and like things...and that's what I try to do, except that I can never really love or sometimes even like celebrities or others in the public eye (or not).
ReplyDeleteBeatrice: I don't see how anyone can "love" a public figure they've never even met. It has to be some other feeling.
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