On 'Love'

[AKM]

I ran across a very good statement made about love that might help someone.

 

This came from a Reddit reading, starting at 4:22. if you want to just watch it.  I've written the statement out below, in slightly abbreviated form (removed some of the non-specific to the statement stuff).
 

Spoiler

 

 

"I took a class called 'Relationships for Life' and I learned that most people fall out of love for the same reasons they fell in it.  That their lover's once endearing stubbornness has now become refusal to compromise, and their one track mind is now immaturity, and their bad habits that you once adored is now money down the drain.  Their spontaneity becomes reckless and irresponsible, and their feet up on the dash is no longer sexy, just another distraction in your busy life, Nothing saddens or scares me like the thought that I can become ugly to someone who once thought all the stars were in my eyes"

Gets me every fucking time.

 

I've been there, and I found those words when I was at my absolute lowest point.  I showed it to my best friend, and he found something else the author wrote. 

"I never expected this to be my most popular poem out of the hundreds I've written.  I was extremely bitter and sad when I wrote this, and I left out the most beautiful part of the class. 

After my teacher introduced us to this theory, she asked us, "Is love a feeling? Or is it a choice?"  We were all a bunch of teenagers.  Naturally, we said it was a feeling.  She said that if we clung to that belief, we'd never have a lasting relationship of any sort.

She made us interview a dozen adults who were or had been married and we asked them about their marriages and why it lasted or why it failed.  At the end, I asked every single person if love was an emotion or a choice.

Everybody said it was a choice.  It was a conscious commitment.  It was something you choose to make work every day with a person who has chosen the same thing.  They all said that at one point in their marriage, the "feeling of love" had vanished or faded, and they weren't happy.  They said feelings are always changing and you cannot build something that will last on such a shaky foundation. 

The married ones said that when things were bad, they chose to open the communication, chose to identify what broke and how to fix it, and chose to re-create something worth falling in love with.  The divorced ones said they chose to walk away.

 

Ever since that class, since that project, I never looked at relationships the same way.  I understood why arranged marriages were successful.  I discovered the difference in feelings and commitments.  I've never gone for the person who makes my heart flutter or my head spin.  I've chosen the people who were committed to choosing me, dedicated to finding some thing to adore, even on the ugliest days.

I no longer fear the day someone who swore I was their universe can no longer see the stars in my eyes as long as they still choose to look until they find them again. 

[KoolHndLuke]

You don't get to choose who you love. It's either there or it's not. You also either know this or you don't. You can only learn it through experience.

 

Some examples; I fell for a woman one time that I had told myself over and over that I wouldn't- I did not want to want her or need her. I care about my brother even though I can't stand him and I wish sometimes that I could just turn it off. I wish I could care about my real father, but, I don't no matter how much I want to.

 

Watching this fucking train wreck reminds me what love does to people. Did they all choose (as in think rationally) to face death to save each other? No, their feelings took over and by the time they realized they were in deep shit, it was too late.

 

 

 

[27X]

Quote

Just be careful that you know the difference between being in love with a person and being in love with your feeling when that person is around, cause those are two completely different things, and one of them doesn't last very long most times.

 

[KoolHndLuke]

13 hours ago, 27X said:

difference between being in love with a person and being in love with your feeling when that person is around

Honestly, I've never understood this. Does it mean the person does not really love the other and just feels good because they are loved by someone? Or do they just get off to people seeing them and believing they are in love? "Love is blind" is confusing as well since we're on the topic.

[27X]

It means both of those things. Relationships take work, and if no work is occurring and the feels are just "perfect" you are either a statistical anomaly x a bajillion or someone frankly is likely lying or hasn't gotten past the love goggles phase.

[KoolHndLuke]

15 hours ago, 27X said:

someone frankly is likely lying

This seems more likely. The more times I hear someone tell me they love me, the surer I am that they don't.

 

And of course love takes work.....and sacrifice. Love is born of the chaos and desires in our heart and needs to be nurtured or it will eventually die- we don't just decide to love someone more or less with our brains. We can make a conscious effort to try, but there is no on/off switch. And sometimes the harder you push against your feelings (try to think of all the logical reasons against them), the stronger they become. The more important question, I think, is how long you can love someone in their absence.

 

"What the head makes cloudy
The heart makes very clear
The days were so much brighter
In the time when she was here"- New York Minute by Don Henley

 

Don seems to have pulled every video of that album btw.