Probably better to have love and lost. Love is a great thing while you're in it. Losing it makes you not take things for granted as much.

I disagree with dj and crukster though. Love doesn't always last forever. You can have it, then lose it. Even "true" love, whatever the fuck that even means.


anal beads in the poll? always hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NEVER get old!!!!!!

I honestly feel sometimes that we aren't truly capable of being monogamous that's why it's such a struggle for some people. I'm fine with sharing my love with numerous partners and being polyamourus with others but society frowns on it like it's a big no no and shuns people that feel this one. I feel like I have so much love to give that for it to go all to one person is a shame but I know that not everyone sees it that when and whenever I get in a relationship my partner never sees it that way. They are more of the monogamous type and to keep them happy I push aside these feelings and try to be monogamous because I'm in love with that person so I make that sacrifice.

When I speak of Love lasting forever, I mean look at those childhood sweethearts that stay together and married for years all the way into their 80s and until one of them passes away. Their love lasts forever, what you think of has love isn't even true love. It's more like lust or just the puppy love stage when love is pretty new and you think you are madly in love with a person but you aren't.

I understand what you are saying by losing it as far as falling in and out of love with someone. That happens with tons of marriages nowadays...people fall out of love with the person they are with for whatever reason and maybe fall in love with someone new while still in the currently loveless marriage.

I've definitely possible to love multiple people in your life; I have. There's been a lot of infatuation in there as well, but I definitely love(d) the two girls I've had long term relationships with. There's no other way to describe the feelings I had for them. Circumstances change, love can fade. It's not this thing that you'll only ever get once in your life, it's a feeling of content devotion to a person, where you will do everything you can to help them and are happy to spend the rest of your life with them. Both with my ex and my current gf, I felt and feel that way. Does that mean that I was lying to myself the first time? I certainly don't think so.

Secondly, Impossible as you may think it, I have never had sex with a woman I didn't love. That said, I've only ever had sex with two women, both of whom I've been in very long relationships with. That isn't to say that I would only have sex with a woman I love, it's simply the way that it worked out.

Thirdly, I have absolutely no problems with monogamy. I've always been a one-girl guy, there has never really been more than one girl that I wanted to get with at any one time, and now that I'm in a relationship, I feel no need to be with anyone else, or to have sex with anyone else. I'll flirt a lot, but it's never with the intention of going anywhere. I'm perfectly happy to agree that there are people out there who aren't monogamous, and I hope that they find similarly minded people so that they can have a happy life, but I don't think it's fair to say that We, as a people, are not monogamous.

No, I didn't say that I thought it was impossible to be in love with every woman you have sex with. When I was talking about it earlier, I didn't think that specific individual did.

I'm okay with monogamy but it's kind of a because I have to. It's been pretty hard for me to find someone that wouldn't mind living an alternative lifestyle like that.

Love changes. It's not perpetual motion. You can love someone, and then stop doing so. It does not mean that what you felt was false or inaccurate. It's just a feeling, and no feeling is an exclusive event.

Thanks! I've thought a lot about this stuff (as I'm sure a lot of people have).

Polygamous relationships are a product of culture and circumstance. In some societies, they have lived in polygamous relationships for hundreds of years simply because it fit their lifestyle. In fact, some cultures have one woman to many men. This is because there are very few females, so all the males compete for the attention of just those few. However, the more these cultures are exposed to western ideas of romance, the more that lifestyle will begin to fade.

Polygamous relationships in the first world are starting to take hold simply because of our fast pace of life. This is a very new idea for us. We simply don't have as much time to devote to courting and getting to know one person. Both men and women work full time jobs. The world demands results faster and faster. Monogamy vs. polygamy has nothing to do with what humans are "meant" to be. We will simply do the thing that best suits the way we currently live, and for the past few centuries, that has been to be in a monogamous relationship.

I agree with this. It's just like the human idea of happiness. For some reason, everyone thinks if we work hard enough we can get to some point where we will be forever happy. That notion causes so much stress and depression it's ridiculous. Happiness is fleeting just like love.

There is a reason couples need to do something to "put the spark back into it". They need to be reminded of the reasons they fell in love with that person in the first place. It is one thing to think of those reasons and another to feel them.

Haha...I think everyone can tell the things that have been on my mind recently.

too hard not to pick anal beads

Yeah, tough innit?

Love is an investment, and like any investment. Your partner can wake up one morning and say f*ck it, I'm done. In which case you've just devoted the best years of your life to something that essentially equates to nothing. I'm sure the potential for reward is high as well, but the thought of possibly losing everything is kind of frightening. I guess it really depends on how much you're willing to risk...

Well as pessimistic as I may be, I try to see the positive in a relationship.
Doesn't mean I start anything with someone I don't have faith in.
It has to have a reasonable chance of working out

I disagree with the Happiness part. The pursuit of happiness is one that many attempt to achieve and get to the point where they can live and lead a stress-free life. It is attainable and it can stay forever once you achieve it. The whole thing about it is that one person's version of ultimate happiness isn't going to be the same as another what another person thinks they should achieve.

The spark you are talking about is romance, they still love each other as in they care about them and they don't want to see harm done to them. The thing you are talking about is romance. There are varying degrees of love. There is the romantic love that you share with your partner and then there is the more platonic love that you share with friends and family. That's the main reason why I say that love is more permanent that people like to believe but I guess i was more concentrated on the platonic love. Sure you could stop loving someone in a platonic way but those relationships between friends and family usually are more permanent and more long term than romantic love.

Thats about as good as you can put it Crash. You have no control over someone elses emotions and thoughts. To play it safe is to never know the peak of happiness that true love can bring. Then again by the same token the complete agony it can inflict upon losing it. Depending on how you look at it is whether or not you think its worth it or not. The way I look at it is..other times in life when I was the happiest dont match up in comparison to times I was happy with someone I truly loved. Bringing new life into the world and sharing things of that nature. No amount of booze or chemical induced happiness will ever fill that void. I couldnt imagine life without having experienced it now though, and even though things didnt pan out the way i had hoped. The experience and other blessings from that relationship were well worth the risk.

I've actually come to believe that a romantic relationship needs a little bit of detachment to thrive, and that being heavily invested in another human being (as we are taught that love consists of) is unhealthy for both parties involved. Love can't be allowed to become obsession.

I think a lot of people need to realise that. Particularly those on the internet.

I know you are talking about me, just come out and say it. No, need to beat around the bush.


What usually happens with love is that in the beginning stages, normally known as puppy love. It can be a bit obsessive but it doesn't always stay that way and that's right. The beginning stages is a combination of lust and love mixed together or what the person feels is love but it's not really love.

Love between two people that last long DOES need a bit of space. Relationships with people that see their partner as the only person to socialize with doesn't last too long most of the time. That's why it's good to have a girls night out and guys night out pretty regularly when you are in a relationship to give your partner some space away. I have made it a point to never date someone that doesn't have any friends. If they don't , I know they will try to be all under me all the time and won't ever want me to do anything without them which is bad!

Dude, you need to stop being so sensitive. The world does not just revolve around you.

Peace.

I'm pretty sure the world has revolved around me since the day I was born 27 years ago.

Not even!

People really need to get outside alot more and breathe air. All of this fake internet stuff is making people delusional. I love you. :bonkhead:

See, that's a statement I completely disagree with. Yeah, the person you love can stop loving you, or decide to run off with another guy, or whatever, but does that then negate all the good things that happened during the relationship? Is it impossible to look back on the good times and remember the good times, rather than focus on the bad? Everything in life is an experience, what's the point in living if you're scared of taking a risk?

Assuming we're talking about 'love' in the romantic sense and not generally.... in the grand scheme of things, I think it's better to have loved and lost at least once, just because it's a valuable experience that you can learn from, but after that, I can think of numerous wimmens I'd probably have been better off not loving at all.

Loved and lost: yes
Loved and lost and loved and lost and loved and lost and loved and lost and loved and lost: no

Odd, though, how the worst relationship I was ever in was probably the one I learned the most from, and not just how to dodge flying glass plates.

Anyone who has loved will have loved and lost.

We all die someday. Does that mean we shouldn't bother?

Love is a relatively meaningless word these days - but there's a general understanding in this context that it refers to an impossible to define emotion or quality. If anything is a part of the human experience, it is love. I don't know if animals can feel it, but I know humans can. Passion and love are the things that drive us to a sense of meaning in life.

Well, if someone brakes up with you and brakes your heart, you may go into spiraling depression. But, if you'd never loved that person in the first place, would you be so miserable?

I think whether it's worth it or not depends entirely on the aftermath, and not at all on the relationship itself.

I'm not actually sure whether I agree with this or disagree with it. I guess it's entirely dependent on cirumstance.

Sure, some would be happy to have tried and ultimately lost. To have the "benefit" of the experiences that their relationship brought to them, even if the relationship didn't last. The advantages of the good would outweight the bad. I was tempted to agree with this.

However I can certainly see it from the other perspective too, and so I think I'm simply undecided, at this point in my life. Making the decision to put everything on the line, and take every risk you can, and being perfectly happy to do this in the hope of succeeding in your relationship or potential one, and losing out, can be a pretty devestating feeling I would imagine.

I think I would probably take the risk, and continue to do so, and I think most people would. But I can definitely see why someone in this kind of situation could consider their gamble to be fruitless if that relationship ends, and if they choose to focus on the mess and the effects of the aftermath rather than any of the more positive moments of their relationship.

If you go into a new relationship thinking that it's destined to fail and thinking about the negatives about it and what's going to happen afterwards then that relationship isn't going to be a pleasant one at all.

I don't think she argued with that, but rather that just when looking back on a relationship, whether it was worth it or not can often depend on the aftermath rather than anything that happened during it. As in, you can only really know for sure once it's over?

Oh that's what she was trying to say?

It seemed like she was saying whether it be worth it or not before you get into the relationship is dependent on the inevitable outcome/aftermath of it.

That's what I thought she was saying.

whats love? semantics.

what is love anyway?

does anybody love anybody anyway?

(Howard Jones)

What is love?

baby don't hurt me

don't hurt me

No more!

This is probably the most cynical view you will hear today:

When people say they are "in love", it's actually vanity not love.

Everyone has an innate need to feel important. That’s a universal truth. That is up there in the ranks of ‘we all need to eat’ and ‘we all need to sleep’.

That is why people “fall in love” with others. When someone makes them feel important and needed, they instinctively get attracted because their need is being met. They get the attention that they want, the knowing that there is someone else that gives a f$%k that they are alive, that in the billions and billions of people in this world, there is someone that would like to spend time with them over everyone else.

No one falls in love with someone that makes them feel like a worthless piece of sh!t, right? “Love” always begins with a smile that melts hearts or a hello what was just a little softer than other hellos or glance that lasted a second too long. It is always when someone makes you feel special.

Then you stay. You stay because you need a witness to your life as it is beautifully articulated in Shall We Dance. You need someone there to make you feel things you do don’t go unnoticed.

I don’t know if it is romantic but I do know it’s still about the self and not the other person.

It is vanity… not love.

Hahahaha. I'm not sure even I'm willing to look at it that negatively, but I appreciate your cynicism and think that you may have a valid point.

Why does unrequited love develop?

Originally, I was just going to dive in and start a debate here, but... you know what? I think I'll wait and contemplate it a bit, then I'll get back to you. You appear to make some sense so I won't dismiss your comment quite yet... I'll admit, though, that I have never fallen in love before, so this may be a bit difficult. Haha

Are you sure you're not just projecting your own convictions/values on the whole of humanity in a desperate attempt to justify your own vanity? 'Cause my family makes me feel important and needed, but I can't imagine myself ever feeling the urge to **** my father if he were to chisel his way out of the cellar.

you don't get the feeling you're walking on air when you see the person?

or miss them so much you cry?

bro/sis, you've never been truly in love

lust is different from love

i can't believe i will ask this but fine...

what is love?

:shycouch:

There's a difference between being in love, and being Hugh Grant.