What's Love and What's Obsession?

[Guest]

 

[Rubyfruit]

I always like my love with a side helping of obsession.

Good morning, Lioness.

 

[Wiggles]

I would imagine unhealthy love is obsession.

When love is healthy and nourishing, it must be love.


I'm certainly not an authority on this.

 

[sufisaint]

obsession is in the mind..l .ove is in the heart...if you know your heart..you know the difference...but even love can end..its a living thing therefore it has a begining and an end and is forever changing in form.

 

[lovetoread]

I've always believed that love is when a person is a part of your life,and obsession is when a person becomes your whole life.

 

[Agent99]

No one can answer that. Our perception of what constitutes love is as unique and individual as our fingerprints. Reminds me of that old saying "one man's treasure is another man's trash"

It really is what you make of it. We have oodles of books and poems and movies and songs that describe what love is (or should be) from someone else's perspective. Emotions are not subject to detailed definitions. Gross generalizations are the best we can do in areas of the heart.

I would imagine that when someone downplays your hurt, they are not trying to belittle your feelings. They are merely applying their own set of circumstances and experience and feelings onto the subject. They are projecting.

All this does is to make you feel that your perceptions were wrong in the first place. That is not true. When reality fails to live up to the image we carry around in our head, we blame ourselves and consider it a failure.

Obsession, on the other hand, seems more borne out of desperation. And it is highly impersonal as well. People who are obsessed don't really love someone, rather they view them as objects. To possess. To control. To manipulate. So that they fit the mold or fit the image in the scenario they have created in their mind.

 

[Guest]

 

[Ishmael]

obsession:
1.) orig. The act of an evil spirit in the possesing or ruling of a person.

2 a) the fact or state of being obsessed with an idea, desire, emotion, etc.

2 b.) such a peristant idea, desire, emotion, etc. esp. one that cannot be got rid of by reasoning.

Love:

To many and to damn big to type it all. None of which state or implies loss of reason.


Got it?

Ishmael

 

[Guest]

 

[lovetoread]

Got it?

Got it.

 

[Guest]

 

[Guest]

 

[Guest]

 

[Ishmael]

Hell no, Ish, I haven't got it. Do you?

And how do I turn my email on? I think the time has come for me to actually be a part of this community in a real way.

Lioness

Click on users cp at the top of the page, select options and click away. Be sure to select 'apply options' before exiting.

Yep, I got it. Read agent99 again, then read the definition, then go look up love.

The difference is profound in it's subtlety.

Ishmael

 

[Guest]

 

[Guest]

Goddamn!!!!

 

[Ishmael]

love (l¾v) n. 1. A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness. 2. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance. 3.a. Sexual passion. b. Sexual intercourse. c. A love affair. 4. An intense emotional attachment, as for a pet or treasured object. 5. A person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction; beloved. Often used as a term of endearment. 6. An expression of one's affection: Send him my love. 7.a. A strong predilection or enthusiasm: a love of language. b. The object of such an enthusiasm: The outdoors is her greatest love. 8. Love. Mythology. Eros or Cupid. 9. Often Love. Theology. Charity. 10. Love. Christian Science. God. 11. Sports. A zero score in tennis. --love v. loved, lov·ing, loves. --tr. 1. To have a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward (a person): We love our parents. I love my friends. 2. To have a feeling of intense desire and attraction toward (a person). 3. To have an intense emotional attachment to: loves his house. 4.a. To embrace or caress. b. To have sexual intercourse with. 5. To like or desire enthusiastically: loves swimming. 6. Theology. To have charity for. 7. To thrive on; need: The cactus loves hot, dry air. --intr. To experience deep affection or intense desire for another. --idioms. for love. Out of compassion; with no thought for a reward: She volunteers at the hospital for love. for love or money. Under any circumstances. Usually used in negative sentences: I would not do that for love or money. for the love of. For the sake of; in consideration for: did it all for the love of praise. no love lost. No affection; animosity: There's no love lost between them. [Middle English, from Old English lufu. See leubh- below.]
————————————————————
SYNONYMS: love, affection, devotion, fondness, infatuation. These nouns denote feelings of warm personal attachment or strong attraction to another person. Love suggests a more intense feeling than that associated with the other words of this group: married for love. Affection is a less ardent and more unvarying feeling of tender regard: parental affection. Devotion is earnest, affectionate dedication; it implies a more selfless, often more abiding feeling than love: The devotion of the aged couple is inspiring. Fondness is strong liking or affection: showed their fondness for their grandchildren by financing their education. Infatuation is foolish or extravagant attraction, often of short duration: Their infatuation blinded them to the fundamental differences in their points


LOL Ish, half the defs of love sound like obsession! Look in the synonyms at devotion. I find it interesting that devotion would be called more selfless and abiding than love. I guess that dictionaries aren't written by psychologists or milquetoasts.

All righty then, I'll throw one out to you, Ish. When you're in pain, do you call what you go through obsession or lost love? How long should the pain last if it ISN'T obsession?

I tried clicking on stuff that looked like email in the cp, but it hasn't worked so far. Do I need to take the "no" off my "hide email address?"

Lioness

Having pain and acknowledging it has nothing to do with loss of reason. Are you behaving in a self-destructive manner? Are you behaving in a manner that is destructive to the other person. Have you neglected those things that must be done?

Reasonable people can hurt and feel loss too.

Ishmael

PS I'd leave the 'hide e-mail address' clicked yes.

 

[glorfindale39]

A difficult queston LIW. To seporate love an obessesion is both a perception of the parties involved, and the attitude of the society you live in. My personal feelings about love do not jive with that of societies.

I think that we restrict our hearts much more these days then we ever did in the past. There is this push that you must be independent, noncompulsive, not codependent, and certainly not obsessed. But is you look in all the great romance literature there is a fair helping of all these things. We restrict ourselfs for fear of what we should be. There is a story by DH Larwence called The Horse Dealers Daughter . It is a great ilustration of the power and mutable nature of love. It is great part a reflection of the surender of the parties involved, and our society does not advocate that.

http://www.geocities.com/andtherewaswater/Archive/TheHorseDealersDaughter.htm

At any rate, I think all love is a form of obsession. You can debate till the cows come home wheather there is a stock definition to seporate them. As with all things in love, the definition or the line between the two is set by the parties involved.

G.

 

[red_rose]

I've always believed that love is when a person is a part of your life,and obsession is when a person becomes your whole life.

I think that was very well said.

 

[Guest]

 

[Shiner]

Love is holding your girlfriends hair outta the way while she pukes down the toilet.

Obsession is Hanns trying to get a fuck from the same woman he called a whore five minute earlier.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

Good thread Lionness. Tough question. It looks like Ish and Agent 99 got to the essence of the difference... the loss of reason.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

I've always believed that love is when a person is a part of your life,and obsession is when a person becomes your whole life.

LTR always has words of wisdom, doesn't she? There must be something good about reading a lot.

 

[Guest]

 

[Ishmael]

1. An interesting point about pain and reason, Ish. Why should there be any pain at all if love were never selfish?

2. The first question is where the dichotomy comes into play. In doing the "right" thing by giving up because that's the only "reasonable" choice I can see, I'm destroying a thing of great value to me. So it's both self-destructive and not.

Lioness

It is a 'loss'. A giving up. How can there not be pain?

A heart divided against itself can stand no stronger than a house divided against itself.

Ishmael