Would u rather love someone or be loved?

[Xectxny19X]

Premise: I've only been in love in platonic relationships. I had a best friend some hmmmm...9 yrs. ago and were inseparable. We had a fall out, and I was terribly heart broken. I guess this is sort of like one of my thoughts that I toggle w/ sometimes.

IMO: Honestly, love hurts either way. So, why love or be loved? In a way, I think all of us would be lying if we said that we truly and honestly didn't want to be a part of any of the misery love brings b/c somehow in the end, we all get mixed up into it. Is that by choice or what? *confused* Damn this world (sorry, momentary aggression)...but you got to love it sometimes. As they say, it is what you make of it.

 

[Raimondin]

At this point in my life I'd rather be loved. I'm tired of "loving relationships" where you do all the loving and get none in return. Maybe it's been my bad choice of partners in the past. Or maybe I've expected too much in return. I know,"it takes two to tango" like the old cliche goes, but it'd be nice if someone else led the dance for a change.

 

[robbie_boy1]

to love

Thanks for the post. I look back on my life and loves both present and past..thru all the joy, the pain, the loss, the gain.....I would always love and lose than go thru life looking and wanting and never finding. A guarded relationship where there is no give and take is doomed to failure.

I have found that through loving more I have more serenity. It is when I try to control, lead and try to rule the game that I flounder, become guarded and put a damper on any type of inter-personal communication that can enhance a relationship. Being bi and having a bi wife makes it very important that we communicate. Only my opinion but I am always ready to learn


robbie

 

[College_geek]

I'm one of the lucky ones to have only been in one real relationship, and it has been mutual love. It wasn't always that way, though. Zerg, for about the first year, loved me more than I loved him. Hell, sometimes I still think he does. I was selfish and vain and dated him for "experience for college". At the time I thought that in college I'd be able to find a boyfriend. If I wasn't with Zerg, I'd still be single. Not many guys here like my type of girl, especially in the area I live, with all the tan, thin, bikini clad girls who'll have skin cancer and wrinkles at 30. Anyway, it feels great to be loved, but I prefer both. That is the ideal situation. I know so many people who love without being loved and have bad experiences and then their solution is to never have relationships ever again. First off, that's masochism to me, because unless you're a hermit or agoraphobic, people need relationships for well being. If someone has many bad relationships, instead of going to drastic measures and say they'll never love again, it's healthier to evaluate why they are having bad relationships. Maybe they're attracted to the "wrong" type of people. Maybe they're pushing away their partners somehow. Maybe they're partners are just moving in different directions.There's so many possibilities.

I do agree with you when you say we all end up in another relationship one way or another. I believe it's a part of human nature. But this all reminds me of a quote from South Park (no, hear me out, it's a serious one). In the episode where Butters thinks he has a girlfriend and then she "breaks up with him", when he's crying at the end, he says:

"...I'm sad. But at the same time I'm really happy that something could make me feel that sad. It's like, it makes me feel alive, you know? It makes me feel human. The only way I could feel this sad now is if I felt something really good before. So I have to take the bad with the good. So I guess what I'm feeling is like a beautiful sadness."

 

[MintSoda]

I'd have to say both or neither. One sided never feels very good. If you love someone that doesn't reciprocate then you're stuck being heartbroken about the one you love not loving you back. On the other hand if someone loves you and you just can't love them back you're either stuck watching someone special who cares about you deeply suffering or you're stuck with a looney stalker who won't go away. All or none, in my opinion, is the only way to go.

 

[Little Bird]

Yes, love is between people, not from one to the other...

 

[PhaZe4GrLie]

I like the idea of just loving someone whether they love you back or not. You just get this natural high just by loving. Yeah, I'm odd.

 

[John Doe]

Interesting question. Love is that state in which another person's happiness is essential to your own. As well, true love is unselfish, at least as unselfish as any mortal emotion can be, because you cannot truly keep the one you love. It is a self-cancelling, null concept.

No, I didn't answer the question, and yes, it's intentional.

 

[sandj]

You know, for such a universal and necessary part of life, it's humbling to think that we still don't have a complete understanding of love: what it is, what it means, how to get it, how to give it, how to keep it.

As you hinted, in some ways love is a reaction, a reflex of sorts. That romantic attraction is not something we can necessarily control. It is powerful, but it is not all there is to love.

For love to last beyond the initial blush of attraction, there has to be a conscious decision, actively work to keep love vital. And for that to work, it must be mutual.

Just some thoughts. Not really fleshed out, but there it is. Immediate and unrefined.

 

[WyldSpirit]

I'm probably really not in the frame of mind to answer this right now, as I'm staring at what I believe is probably the rapidly approaching end of my own love affair. But, then again, maybe it's the perfect time for me to answer this. I've been in all three situations, mutual love (platonic and romantic), and both ends of one-sided love, the recipient and the giver. When it's one-sided (on either side) love can really really suck. It's painful, heart-rending and truely terrible, but it can be really amazing too (or maybe I'm just crazy???) I guess I just figure that anytime that you feel anything that deeply it can't be all bad. At least you know you're not dead, right? Of course I'd prefer mutual love, but, even with mutual love, that doesn't mean there isn't going to be pain. Sometimes lots of it. We only hurt the ones we love (or the ones who love us). After all, if they didn't care, it wouldn't hurt, right?

So, will I be one of those bitter ones that swear off love? No, I very firmly believe that our emotions run on a scale of 10 through -10, in order to be capable of achieving that 10 in happiness you have to be willing to risk the -10 in despair. So, although I've been hurt very very deeply in the past, I'm just not willing to give up trying for that 10 yet.

 

[Avery_Chisholm]

I like the idea of just loving someone whether they love you back or not. You just get this natural high just by loving. Yeah, I'm odd.

exactly

 

[snowy ciara]

I'd rather love, I think.

Being the object of someone's love is too hard. Too often, we want someone to be our other half, complete us, make us whole. It's a lot of responsibility and being the center of that sort of relationship sucks. The other person wants or needs you to be this stupid perfect creature and when you fall short they don't like it or they fall apart cause you're "not the woman I thought you were" and they get angry. If you're lucky, one of you has the sense to walk away in anger and leave you both crying. If you're not, they act on the anger and lash out, destroying you and your life and sometimes your body and soul. I suppose my answer is colored by the way things ended with the evil ex, but I'd rather love. I'd rather take someone as they are, no stupid romantic illusions about the percieved perfection of my lover, and treat them as well as I can. I don't even ask them to love me back. I don't really want that. I'll fuck it up somehow. I just don't think I'm a good risk for someone's heart, unless that person's emotional masichism matches my incredible ability to screw up.

As always, this is subject to change without notice. But right now, I don't want to be loved. It's too damned hard.

 

[Brave Maximus]

It's a very hard question. Being in love is the most amazing feeling you can ever have. The world is perfect and you are happy. But it doesn't mean anything unless the object of affection loves you back.

When you reach that moment where you can stare into the other persons eyes and see your love reflected and redoubled - well, poets have written about it for millenia, and I'm not about to attempt my hand at it.

On the other hand, love doesn't come with out risk. I've never met a person who hasn't had their heart ripped out and jumped up and down on a few times. If I could live with out that, life would be perfect.

For me, it's both - I'll risk the heart ache for the chance to love and be loved back.




Heh, and I figure turn-about is fair play X

 

[DarKirby]

Maybe I'm just naïve, but I feel like there can't really be one-sided love. For you to really love someone, I think you need to really connect with them, and feel like you can understand pretty much everything about them, including what they're feeling. Sure, maybe that person won't be willing to admit it's love yet, but they should feel that it's right and come to realize it with time. Otherwise, there's just attraction, which can be an amazing and very exciting thing, but it doesn't have the same sort of infinite patience and understanding that love does. But that's just my opinion, so nobody kill me over it ;-)

 

[zartol]

I have to say both. I can only assume that we are talking about the relationship type of love and not lust or infatuation. Love is a very strong emotion that in all ways will consume you. It is just part of the human landscape to desire the giving and receiving of love. There are those who are to selfish or fearful and say they don't want love but, I believe that if the truth were told, it would be otherwise.

I don't want to gloss this over. Love is hard and messy and soul wrenching at times. It can be all you need and all there is at other times. In my life: It's worth it all.

 

[bisexplicit]

Obviously my preference would be to have it be mutual.

 

[cndallas]

I miss being in love.