Defining Love

[MT_Pitcher]

Hey, I really meant it......

If you go back and look through this thread (and many others), from my perspective , it seems historically not many people agree with the girl in the hat

Oh, but when you're right, you're right!
While being a true romantic at heart, I also have my feet grounded in reality through experience.
I also realize that there is love and there is LOVE. Two different animals. One can become the other. LOVE is when reality and time feed the love.... sometimes...very seldom....and requires more than a little magic growing dust.

 

[midwestyankee]

My point was not that you were idealizing them, it has already been done for you through many years of interpetation

I beg to differ. I read Abélard et Héloise in the original medieval French. They did not idealize their own story.

 

[GiveawayGirl]

Oh, but when you're right, you're right!
While being a true romantic at heart, I also have my feet grounded in reality through experience.
I also realize that there is love and there is LOVE. Two different animals. One can become the other. LOVE is when reality and time feed the love.... sometimes...very seldom....and requires more than a little magic growing dust.

I am a true romantic wannabe. Unfortunately, reality has taught me that it just doesn't happen. With any partnership, both parties must do their part. When you have inequity in the partnership, it does not lend itself to smooth sailing.

 

[GiveawayGirl]

I beg to differ. I read Abélard et Héloise in the original medieval French. They did not idealize their own story.

But bear in mind that you are reading it based on your own personal interpretation. What was then, is not now.

And we could spend the rest of the day citing works to prove our individual points.

 

[MT_Pitcher]

I am a true romantic wannabe. Unfortunately, reality has taught me that it just doesn't happen. With any partnership, both parties must do their part. When you have inequity in the partnership, it does not lend itself to smooth sailing.

Nothing in life "just happens"
Everything requires work....
Love needs it from both sides.. and lots of it!!!

 

[GiveawayGirl]

Nothing in life "just happens"
Everything requires work....
Love needs it from both sides.. and lots of it!!!

I think a huge factor in making a relationship work is balanced priorities. If the relationship is a higher priority for one partner then that inequity issues becomes huge.

 

[midwestyankee]

But bear in mind that you are reading it based on your own personal interpretation. What was then, is not now.

And we could spend the rest of the day citing works to prove our individual points.

One's own reading is always a part of the experience, of course, and in some ways no book or story exists apart from the mind of the reader. That said, citing and discussing great works of literature all day sounds like a terrific alternative to the list of tasks in front of me. Now if only there was enough coffee to keep such a discussion going as long as I'd like.

 

[MT_Pitcher]

I think a huge factor in making a relationship work is balanced priorities. If the relationship is a higher priority for one partner then that inequity issues becomes huge.

Small inequities are to be expected, there are ebbs and flows to any relationship. But one partner can't feel like the only one working at it!! Recipe for disaster....

 

[midwestyankee]

Small inequities are to be expected, there are ebbs and flows to any relationship. But one partner can't feel like the only one working at it!! Recipe for disaster....

Exactly.

 

[GiveawayGirl]

One's own reading is always a part of the experience, of course, and in some ways no book or story exists apart from the mind of the reader. That said, citing and discussing great works of literature all day sounds like a terrific alternative to the list of tasks in front of me. Now if only there was enough coffee to keep such a discussion going as long as I'd like.

To my mind, the one citation I can make that is the end all and be all is The Bible. After all, it is the greatest story of love there is, yet through various interpretations we encounter benevolence, forgiveness, retribution, sacrifice, and sorrow.

 

[midwestyankee]

To my mind, the one citation I can make that is the end all and be all is The Bible. After all, it is the greatest story of love there is, yet through various interpretations we encounter benevolence, forgiveness, retribution, sacrifice, and sorrow.

Even here, in this work you cite, there are so many stories from which to find examples for our discussion. So many forms of love shown in so many different ways by many different people.

Who can say that Rahab did not act out of love? What of Sarah and her patience with Abraham? Look at the difficulties between David and Michal. Yes, indeed, many stories - without even beginning to look at the New Testament.

Good choice, GG.

 

[Guest]

 

[Guest]

 

[GiveawayGirl]

Sigh... Quite often, I lurk on this thread, and read with great interest the posts herein. I have been reluctant to post myself (other than a copy of lyrics from a Martina McBride song)... not really sure why, I think it is because either my brain or myheart hurts too much when i begin to look within myself to see what lies within me. But on this topic...

Without divulging too much of my personal situation.. I, like so many others at Lit, am married, but have had virtually zero sexual contact for many years with my spouse. There is a certain amount of physical closeness in the manner of hugs, chaste kisses, etc, but as far as "sex", "making love", "fucking" or any of the other shades of the rainbow - zero. It's complicated (isn't it always?). I have never given up on the situation - hope springs eternal - that is another topic altogether. As a way of searching for SOMETHING to reaffirm my "maleness", that I am desirable as a man, I COULD have eleceted to have a physical affair. But my personal set of morals prevented me form doing so. Those same morals allowed me to engage in flirting online and as a result of that, I have been involved for 4-1/2 years with a woman I met at Lit. We have never met. We have never touched. We have exchanged pictures of course and we talk nearly daily, but it is truly a sterile physical relationship. Our contact was at one time both via online and phone, now it it is virtually exclusively by phone. At one time, it could be as much as 2 hours a day - one glorious day we spent 9 hours "together". Lately, we are lucky if we can spend an hour per week together. And that time is usually as one drives to or from work and the other is already at work, so at best the conversation is brief and awkward or mumbled. Is this still a viable relationship? What has changed? I am not saying that physical contact is a requirement, chaste though it may be (as in my wife and I) - because there are SO many other variables and stimuli and issues in play. But to live solely on the phone, or by email, or by a few tokens in the real mail? That is sheer agony.

I'm not sure of the point I am trying to make, or if this is more of a rant/vent. Is it fair to another person, especially if they are unattached or "available" in the real/physical world that I choose to remain only an "online" person? Does a phone relationship constitute RL? If you dream of someone, engage in "what-if" scenarios in the middle of the night as you stare at the celing in the dark, if you wrangle with "should I make THE change now"... if you do these things, doesn't that constitute "Real Life"?

Jeez... I told you my head hurts when I think about this stuff too much. All this may have already been answered earlier in the thread, so I hope I am not plowing old ground. If so, just ignore me. Hell just ignore me anyway... methinks this was more of a rant than anything else anyway. I sure didn't provide any direction....

- Hooch

Hooch-

You plow away at YOUR ground and have no worries about what anyone else has tilled.

 

[GiveawayGirl]

Even here, in this work you cite, there are so many stories from which to find examples for our discussion. So many forms of love shown in so many different ways by many different people.

Who can say that Rahab did not act out of love? What of Sarah and her patience with Abraham? Look at the difficulties between David and Michal. Yes, indeed, many stories - without even beginning to look at the New Testament.

Good choice, GG.

Yank, if there was ever anything that I was absoutely, without question, positively sure of, it is this....

You and I do NOT want to discuss the bible.

I regretted my post in the same instant it went up.

 

[midwestyankee]

Hooch, welcome to the thread, friend.

You gave us a lot to chew on, and possibly much of it does come down to that inequity factor that GG had already raised earlier. Only you can know that. On the other hand, if you maintained a viable relationship for over four years strictly by phone and online media, congratulations. In this age of instant gratification and self-absorbed pursuit of pleasure, that is nearly miraculous.

 

[midwestyankee]

Yank, if there was ever anything that I was absoutely, without question, positively sure of, it is this....

You and I do NOT want to discuss the bible.

I regretted my post in the same instant it went up.

There's something dangerous about an agnostic who also knows the book inside out, isn't there?

 

[GiveawayGirl]

There's something dangerous about an agnostic who also knows the book inside out, isn't there?

Another benchmark post for the girl in the hat:

No comment

 

[midwestyankee]

Another benchmark post for the girl in the hat:

No comment

I am stunned.

You know I had to quote this one to put it on your permanent record.

 

[GiveawayGirl]

I am stunned.

You know I had to quote this one to put it on your permanent record.

Heaven help me, the smartass is still intact

 

[Guest]

 

[DLL]

Originally posted by midwestyankee
I'm not idealizing the great loves of the past, only pointing out that DLL's statement that sex is a necessary ingredient in love. Like so many absolutes, it fails under close inspection.

Now as for you, my hatted friend, your analysis of what happens in a long-distance relationship appears to be spot-on. It's that factor of the mind filling in the gaps of what's missing that is the hidden danger. Very good point.

I didnt say sex is a necessary ingredient I said all relationships thrive on the phyiscal...I typed this fast and will catch up on all the postings but I agree with GG a relationship needs togetherness and the flirting in lit make it very hard to build a strong committment for many people based solely on just a relationship of words..did this make sense..I think people love to be held touched smiled at in real life..phone and cam are only so good for that

 

[midwestyankee]

I didnt say sex is a necessary ingredient I said all relationships thrive on the phyiscal...I typed this fast and will catch up on all the postings but I agree with GG a relationship needs togetherness and the flirting in lit make it very hard to build a strong committment for many people based solely on just a relationship of words..did this make sense..I think people love to be held touched smiled at in real life..phone and cam are only so good for that

all relationships thrive on the physical its a must to work...
(checks book for the botox appointment)

When you said "It's a must to work..." I took that to mean that the physical is a requirement for a relationship to work. Did I misread you?

I don't disagree that people love to be held and smiled at in real life. Phone and cam and internet sex are very limited media for expressing love; you're quite right there.

My disagreement was with the absolute. Look at Hooch's relationship: four years without any physical touch. I'd say that is a good demonstration that such things are quite possible - and not just for fabled medieval monks and nuns.

 

[midwestyankee]

Heaven help me, the smartass is still intact

Even without tact, this smartass will always be a smartass.

 

[shell seeker2]

Even without tact, this smartass will always be a smartass.

Once again, I'd rather be a smartass then a dumbass! How's everyone doing?