If you will indulge me ...

[Isabella Thorne]

I asked this question a long time ago before in a thread ... and didn't get too much feedback ...

but i think the board has become a wee bit more philosophical as of late ... n'est-ce pas?

so i will pose my question once again if you will indulge me ...

If you had to make a choice of being in a relationship with someone who either:

loved you more than you loved them

or

you loved them more than they loved you.

which would it be? and you can't say equally ... it would have to be a choice ...

which answer would make you the greedy one? ... to be with the one you love ... or to be showered with affection from the one you do not?

i can't decide ... there are pros and cons for both choices ..
________________________
questions ... questions
maybe it's just me who's being philisophical lately ...

 

[Merelan]

I would rather be the one loving. This reminds me of a story by Lewis Carroll... One of the scenes the girl has to choose whether she wants:
All will love Sylvie

or
Sylvie will love All

She chose the second one, and received love from all also.
Wandering again, sorry.

 

[BrainyBeauty]

Tis better to give than to receive

I agree with Merelan.
I would rather love someone more - as it seems comfortable and nurturing. The flip side is that if someone loved me more, I would no doubt feel guilty or pressured to live up to some unrealistic ideal. Does that make sense IT girl?

 

[Svedish_Chef]

I seem to be the one loving more... don't know whether I like it or not just the way it seems to be

 

[brazenblaze]

I'd prefer to be the one loving...the other way would probably smother me and make me a "not so nice" person.

 

[Svedish_Chef]

the IT girl?

Lie Detector

she's a movie star arrangement
got a touch of Bergman to her face
she wears suits and buys him flowers
smokes his cigarettes and bakes him cakes

he says uh oh i love you
but i'm not sure i trust you
you seem strange to me

she's got green eyes and she's lovely
reminds me of the 'it' girl with her lips
got an automatic license
reads all Dostoievsky's household tips

he says uh oh i love you
but i'm not sure i trust you
you seem strange to me

it took a thousand cliches just to scold her
took a man from Stepford and a tape recorder
got his ego broken,
so crestfallen
you made a start, you made us laugh
stop it. you're a grown man baby
it's just that your head's no good

 

[bluntforcemama]

I think I'd rather be in a relationship where the other person loved me more than I loved him. I've been in the opposite situation, and it was very painful... but if I had to choose, I think I'd keep my feelings low while he kept his feelings high... make sense?

 

[genderbender]

Excuse me, but IMHO its a silly question.

Yes, many of us have experienced being attracted to someone who isn't interested in us and probably have had people come on to us we're not interested in. But we're talking about love here, not infatuation, not seduction. We may have difficulties expressing love and we may have difficulties receiving love. Most of us suffer from one or the other malady. But love doesn't belong to anyone. Love is more than sexual energy or desire to possess another person, it arises out of the moment, out of two people allowing themselves to be vulnerable with one another. It certainly doesn't belong to the lovers, they simply bathe in the sweetness that arises when they're willing to open their hearts to another. And the "other" certainly doesn't have to be a lover, for love can exist between any two people, if their hearts are open. Its one of the miracles of being human, to be received with gratitude and awe.

If you want to consider a question about love, ask what it is in you that keeps you from expressing it or receiving it. To me, that would be a much more interesting conversation.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Actually, GB, it's not a stupid question, it's a very good one. It's a very interesting one as well and very revealing of the people who answer it.

I'm in one of those situations where one loves the other more. It happens. The StudMuffin loves me more than I love him. I love him, after 11 1/2 years and that nasty war baggage I've had to deal with for most of it, I can tell the difference between infatuation, sexual love, and love. I do love him or I'd've dropped him like yesterday's bellbottoms.

Love has nothing to do with sex, it has nothing to do with possession, it has nothing to do with belonging to someone else, it has nothing to do with spur of the moment actions or emotions.

Love is the willingness to give of yourself to another person, all of yourself. When you love someone you put their needs and wants before your own, you accept them for who they are but don't require that they do the same of you. Love is all giving and no taking. Some people think love is how the other person makes you feel when you're with them, it's not, that's more like infatuation. Love is how you feel when you're not with them. It's how you feel when you stop off to buy ice cream and you only have enough to buy one, so you buy their favorite, not yours. Love isn't how they make you feel, love is how you feel when they make you mad or make you hurt.

Being the person in the relationship that loves the least, I would much rather be the one who loves more than the other. The pain is there, but there is pain on this side as well.

[Edited by KillerMuffin on 03-03-2001 at 12:31 PM]

 

[Isabella Thorne]

If you want to consider a question about love, ask what it is in you that keeps you from expressing it or receiving it. To me, that would be a much more interesting conversation.

..... are you talking to me, Bender?

why would you say that?

it was only a hypothetical question btw ... sort of like the game "Scruples" ...

 

[genderbender]

Well said!

KillerMuffin - I'm well versed in love and before you get me into anymore hot water, I said it was a silly question, not a stupid question. Isabella says she's playing a game with it, which is fine. I interjected a moment of seriousness, not to demean her play or that of others on the thread. I did a little of what you've done in your response to me, something that often seems to happen when playful threads take a more serious turn.

I agree with most of what you say loving is all about. In my formulation of love I'm talking about the foundation, not the structure that one builds above and around it. One who loves naturally cares for the other's well being and shares with them joys of the ordinariness of life. The woman who loves me presented me last night with a scarf she knitted for me. She invited me to help her pick out the yarn, then made a swatch with a pattern to see if I liked it. When her brother suggested during a telephone conversation that he might like a scarf I said to her I wouldn't mind if she gave him the one she was making for me. She objected, saying the scarf was being made with love for me! When she said it, tears welled up for me. I was able to receive her love in the form of this scarf.

Now this woman has been seriously ill for many years. I've helped her onto a bed pan and I've cooked many of her meals. I do all of her shopping and drive her to her doctor's appointments. Even though our marriage ended four years ago, I've never loved her more and would do just about anything for her except abandon myself. She doesn't ask that of me because she too bathes in the love between us, a love that is no longer sexual.

I know about love young woman, and I know about caring for another person without demanding anything in return. I also know about how to care for myself. And it all arises out of love, compassion and gratitude.

Life isn't always an easy journey, but we make the best of it. That's what I'm doing.

 

[muffer4u]

To Be Loved

Its a difficult question to answer,but, I think that I'd feel more confortable being the one who is loved more. I think that I could handle it better. It would be tough for me to be with someone that I knew didn't love me and was play-acting.

 

[Xander]

I love unconditonally.
when I love I love with all have. with all my heart.

So I guess that would put me in the catagory of the ones, loving more than they love me. Then again. I may never know that for sure.

One thing I do know for sure is. I wont stop loving in any other way than that.

 

[Docgtvt]

tough querie, isabella.
i think that i would prefer to be the loved...mainly because thinking back to my youth, i do recall that being dumped sucks!





"jersey girls are the bestest girls in the whole wide world!'

 

[SteamyChik]

If I had to choose, I would want a man that loved me more. I would hate being insecure and anxious all the time in the reverse situation. I'm so glad I don't have to choose in real life!

 

[Siren]

Good question Izzy........

 

[Artemis' Nightingale]

despair or hatred? my i'm a pessimist. i'd rather be the one loved back more because someone not loving you whom you love hurts alot...

 

[Silverlily]

Interesting question Iz.

I have to agree with Myst and Siren, I would rather be the one loved. Again, been in the other and would rather not go through that again.

 

[Blackbich]

Would have to say I'd rather be the lover. That's the way it's always been and I'm comfortable with it.

 

[lickerish]

I love somebody, I love him immensely. It has been a very long time since I last loved someone, other than my daughters. I'm slowly learning how to open my heart to him; and at this point, I think he loves me more just for being so patient and understanding.

 

[Charly]

The joy of love is that you want to give and give and you take the pleasure of not holding back.

I started out thinking I would want to be the one who loved the most. But on reflection, I think that that person is the only one who might have to hold back. Therefore, slightly less wonderful.

So, I want to be the one whose love is second most. Pray god, don't let it be by too wide a margin.

 

[Isabella Thorne]

<big hugs lickerish>

... why you always know how to indulge your sweet little Canadian bacon, Siren ... and you know too that I always love it ...

Well Buffy ... i didn't realize that your grandpa was posting now too, young woman ... j/k ... lol ...

but seriously Bender ... have you never pondered a hypothetical question before? i didn't mean that this thread was a game ... in spite of the fact that i truly do know how to give and receive love ... real love ...

and you know what ... i think i would rather be the person who is loved more .... cause it is hard to continuously live with the pain of loving one more than the other has to give ... been there done that ... and i don't want to be there again ...

 

[lickerish]

<big hugs lickerish>

Thanks Iz, I actually needed that.

((Isabella)) back atcha

 

[Rando]

LOVE

Do I love more, or does my soul mate?
I would walk through the firey pitts of HELL for her.
I look forward each day to find new ways to make her happy.
Every thing I do, I do for us. Even getting up every day
and going into this crappy job, so she can stay at home.
I love her enough that if I ever had to give her up, to
make her happy, I WOULD. It would rip out my heart, but
if that is what it took, I would make it happen.
Does this sound like loving MORE?

 

[SpecialK]

Damn this is an interesting question. What a thing to have to choose, eh? <shaking my head> I mean, you know that things suck from both perspectives. To have to choose... yikes!

I have always been the one who was loved more. It would be nice to be on the other side. It gets very tiresome on this side all the time. <sigh> I'm beginning to think there is something wrong with me.

K