Is probably
the best answer to (most of) the questions below…
How can you
define love? *
How many
kinds of love can you distinguish?
Should love
be unconditional? **
What can
love be mistaken for? Desire? Passion? Fascination? Infatuation? Craving?
Obsession? Affection? Care? Friendship? Dedication? Sacrifice? Something else?
Why do
people pair off? Just driven by the feelings (?) named above? Not to be alone
when they grow old? To have a shoulder to cry on? For practical / economic
reasons? To bring offspring to the world? Out of primeval instinct of
preserving the mankind? Because it’s socially acceptable? Because others do it?
Why do
people decide to formalise their relationships by getting married? Does the
institution of marriage reinforce the bond between them? Do they think due to
formalised procedure of breaking up (divorce) they can make the other one stay
by their side? Does the ring on the finger change the way of thinking of the
opposite sex? For same reasons as in the paragraph above?
What keeps
people together for decades? *** What does it take to put up with each other
for such long period of time? Patience? Tolerance? Friendship? Something else?
What put
relationship to a test? Parting for a longer period of time? Extraordinary hardships
(incurable disease, accident, disability) or the down-to-earth problems (she
spends too much money on clothes, he scatters his dirty socks around the flat)?
****
Does a
relationship between two people, casually called “love”, has to go through specific
stages? If psychology attempts to define such stages, is its approach
universal? Does every relationship have to go through the same path? How about
the concept of “love at first sight”? *****
Why do
mating rituals differ with age? A silly question, but… Why a teenager who wants
to go out with a girl acts differently than his ten years old counterpart?
How much
freedom should there be in a relationship? To what extent can we influence, and
to what extent tolerate our partners choices?
Is there
such thing as destination? If somebody says two people were meant for each
other, is it just a metaphor? ******
How quickly
can a relationship between two people turn sour? How short can be the distance
between love and hatred? If it can turn into hatred, or any other negative
feeling, has it ever been a true love?
How is it
easy to break a promise*******? If a promise is given before the countenance of
God (church marriage), is it harder to break it, compared to the pledge made in
a registry office? Is the time factor important – i.e. the more time goes by
from making the promise, the more brittle the value of it is? If the other
party breaks the promise, are we still bound by the promise we’ve given?
How come
people hurt people they love? Do they do it deliberately or inadvertently? If
the former, is it, again, genuine love? Should a “normal” human being feel
guilty after hurting a fellow human? Is it inhuman to take pleasure in causing
pain to other people?
Why
sometimes it takes so little to fall out of love? Does it prove fragility of
human feelings?
Why
sometimes it’s the opposite – why is it so hard to let go? Does being unable to
break away from a dead-end affection bear any testimony?
Is there a
return from the point of no return? If so, it is true some wrongdoing can be
forgiven, but never forgotten? Why some people after breaking up can still be
friends and some hate each other guts?
The list
could have been longer, yet extending it will get me nowhere nearer to the
revelation, so I choose to take a bike from the garage and have a shake-down
ride :-)
* Don’t
just think of love as a feeling between two people of (usually) different sex.
** Consider
manifold facets of love, including the concept of divine love, a deity giving
its love to mankind.
*** Good
timing for such question – five days after my parents celebrated 30th
anniversary of their wedding and half a year before my paternal grandparents
celebrate their 65th anniversary.
**** From
what I’ve observed, living together is the best test. From the phase when you
spend together only the best moments, you go to another one, when you have to
get accustomed to your partner’s habits, share mundane household chores, begin
to have a common budget, you get up the bed of roses and walk into the thorns…
***** I’ll
dare to answer this question right away – it’s simplification / misnomer –
there might be a fascination, affection, desire at first sight, but it can
become love later.
****** My
own take on this problem is that there is more than one “second half” to every
one of us, hence odds of meeting at least one of them are much higher.
*******
Having lived long enough to see people tying the knot before God and then
watching their relationship falling into pieces I find this question immensely
justified.
In fact,
these are all questions to which there is no one clear answer. The realm of
humans’ emotions is governed by an indefinite set of vague rules. It’s where
its beauty consists in…
3 comments:
Um...do you know the expression:
"paralysis in analysis"?
It's Spring ...you're an attractive, unattached, young man.
You pose too many questions; the answer is simple: Ask a pretty young woman out for a date and see where it leads.
Basia
The answer is simple. Falling in love is a matter of the right chemistry between two people. The trick is keeping that flame alive over years and years.
The answer - the man should be in charge. He should continually surprise and delight his woman. He should care for to an infinite degree, thinking of her at all times, buying flowers 'out of occasion'.
In bed, he should put her needs first every time. Foreplay begins first thing in the morning; warm, loving words at the breakfast table, loving exchanges of SMSs during the day; gentle caresses and hugs on return from work.
An endless sense of appreciation for the wonder of having that One Special Woman in your life...
Should do the trick!
@Basia
checked it out ;-) it leads to... even more questions, just more precise. But if there are secrets, there's a pleasure in unravelling them. If something doesn't take effort, how can it give pleasure?
@Anon
this is the kind of comment the post was meant to conjure up
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