Anyone else here who doesn’t believe in love?

[AllAloneInThisHouse]

And I mean now more of the partnership, committed, romantic (not sexual) love.

Don’t start listing how you love your kids or nature.

I mean the, I choose you, let’s share this life together - what other people - kind of love.

Is that even real?

I think this is spot on and worth remembering.

I do think this sort of love is possible and absolutely does happen.

But one has to remember that its conditioned by the historical baggage and the need for a justifying "myth" around the notion of two people staying together for life.

Life-long monogamy isn't normal, biologically speaking. It's optimal for childrearing and good financially, but its not fundamentally what a lot of people actually biologically "want". Plenty of people make it work over decades, despite this but it requires an effort of will to convince people to stay together. Historically that was faith and morality. Nowadays fewer people have this and "love" is the justification for this.

Again, that doesn't mean that "love" can't be real and a lot of people live together for decades who genuinely love each other. But its very hard to unpick the pure idea of "love" from other emotions and conditions which make it desirable to believe in it: financial dependency, emotional dependency, habit, sex, social expectation, friendship, etc etc. To some extent all of these play a part in what we now call "love". Extracting the genuine essence of "love" without all of these other factors is quite difficult.

Love between is real. Although I would question the notion of “romantic love” and possibly separate these two things out. To me, you can experience romance with someone at different stages of a relationship and with someone with whim you are not necessarily in love. It can give you that fluttering feeling but that is not the same as the kind of love that grows over time through daily “doing life” with another person and knowing each other inside and out, being a real team.

On the way home from work yesterday I fancied some ice cream and popped into the shop on the way home. Looked in the freezer to find DP had already bought me the exact same ice cream on his way home because he thought I would probably want some. A silly example but he is my best friend and love of my life. I hope you find yours someday too x

To you first question.
Yep, pretty much.
Not just a bit, though.

I mean I’ve never experienced it, never even gotten close.
So can’t help but wonder.

I was suprised by few comments who got angry.
Really didn’t mean it the way they took it.

But why is there such a pressure for relationships then?
If it’s not natural?
Why are single people though as less than?
Why is relationships put so high on the pedastal?

Clinically 'in love' lasts about 2 years. Long enough to have a baby and get it out of infancy. Then 'love' can continue but 'in love' is probably gone. People will tell you differently but it's all evolutionary!

I really love DH. The heady days of crying in the loos when we were apart are gone!

I think relationships are put on a pedestal as you say because when you are in a good relationship you always have someone to hang out with, default plans for the weekend/Christmas/NYE and someone to spend Sunday afternoons with.

I’m not sure single people are thought of as “less than” though. There are lots of other important achievements beyond finding a partner.

It's an interesting topic for discussion, OP.

@AllAloneInThisHouse

But why is there such a pressure for relationships then?
If it’s not natural?
Why are single people though as less than?
Why is relationships put so high on the pedastal?

These are really really good questions and I don't know the answers but my opinion, FWIW:

Partly because it makes a lot of sense for children to be reared by their biological parents so there's an impetus on making people feel that staying with their coparent is optimal.

Partly a hangover from the days when most people were religious and the Church dictated that sex outside of a lifelong marriage was frowned upon or even illegal. Even though most people no longer believe this there's still a veneer of thought that its "better" to stay with someone - more moral and respectable.

Also a lot of it has to do with patriarchy and the fact that for women, historically, yoking yourself to a man of means was the smartest financial strategy open to you. Because men dictated the terms of this partnership, and because this partnership generally benefited men more than it did women in every other dimension other than financial protection, there was a great deal of pressure on women in particular to convince themselves that staying with one bloke for life was in their best interests. And "romance" grew up as an elaborate justification for what was at heart an economically driven partnership.

It's interesting that the modern culture of "romance" and the Disneyfication of marriage coincides with the decline of universal religious belief. I think romance and the belief in "one person for you for life" grew up to replace the vacuum caused by the decline of faith. If you don't have to get married to be accepted by society, what will convince you to do so? Money and "romance".

I would have thought that first was more ’love’ (lust) and the you grow to care, maybe even actually love them and that would be the in love part…

I don't believe there is "the one", the only one for you who you magically manage to meet out of all the people in the world.
I don't believe the (wonderful) rush of being "in love" is the same thing as loving someone, because I think you need to know them to love them.
I do believe deep love and connection between two people in a partnership exists, and can develop out of being "in love". I have it with my husband.
And I have just realised I have basically just paraphrased that bit out of Captain Corelli:

Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your root was so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.

It's real. But I understand if you've never felt it why you might doubt it exists.

Yes l do believe in love, l also believe romantic relationships usually have their own timeframe, just because the relationship doesn' t last forever doesn't necessarily mean it was a waste of time or wasn't meant to be. It was right for that time.
Part of me still loves my late husband and l know its possible that l could love another man again but what l' ve also learnt is that if you love the person you have become and the life you are living then romantic love is not a priority, not for me anyhow.

That's all semantics. If it was 'just' lust it would be solved by shagging. It's not, it's solved by proximity. The feeling isn't lust, it's much stronger, and different.

I don't know why everybody is being so defensive.

The OP asked a question. If you're going to be a delicate little flower about it then don't participate and move on to another thread.

I think intense feelings are real. You can't stop thinking about someone. Wherever it comes from I believe you can see it on MRI scans?

In my experience this dies down after a while, but if you have formed a friendship and attraction and familiarity then it will be easy to stay together.

"love" though is undefinable. I'd say it's a mixture of intense feelings that grow into respect and familiarity.

I've felt very intense love, but it was completely irrational, based on absolutely nothing, it was almost instant.

But I doubt you feel that sinking stomach fluttering stuff after, say, 10 years together, even five, or even 2 perhaps. But you still have feelings of respect and appreciation and friendship that can be described as love?

I have had the intense feelings for women also, though I am heterosexual, but a feeling that you find them dreamy and beautiful and think about then in their absence.

Because it is saying, "what you have based your life on is imaginary". People are going to react to that!

Because it is saying, "what you have based your life on is imaginary". People are going to react to that!

It's just their opinion. It doesn't make it fact.

It's bollocks.

Sexual attraction brings people together more often than anything, often followed by drunkenness.

Then a familiarity grows.
Brain forms pathways associated with that person.
Those pathways misfire when the person isn't around.
That's what caused the missing and any associated emotion.

Love is real but fairytale love in not. Relationships require work and sometimes that love fades/changes/fizzles out but it doesn't mean it was never real.

Really though love is just hormones/brain chemicals that are there to increase our chances of survival as we're more likely to survive in packs and our offspring are more likely to survive is both parents are involved.

Yeah I think romantic love is similar to friendship love.

I love my DH, but he's also my best friend. So that's where love gets confusing, I don't think our love is strictly in love romantic love. I think we have sexual love and friendship love mashed together... wait, did I just describe romantic love 👀🤣

I do. I don't think it's some measurable state of being but I do think it's an important, powerful emotion/mindset/bond with someone.

I do think romantic love as it's described sometimes is misleading or even damaging - how many people panic 10 years into a relationship because sparks aren't flying any more? While that might be the case for some people, lots of people, maybe even a majority, settle into the deep familiarity, trust, shared experience and bond that I think long-term love is really about.

That heightened emotion caused by hormones and lust and newness is a totally different thing - you can still have strong sexual attraction and chemistry in a long term relationship, and it can strengthen the bond between you, (and vice versa - a good emotional bond can increase the sexual attraction) but it's not the same thing as new-relationship-lust.

I think we sell people the idea of perfect, idyllic, unconditional love and we don't prepare them for the fact that people are fallible and it won't always be perfect. But I do absolutely believe that love is real: it just can be messier and less 'romantic' in the traditional sense than perhaps we're used to.

This is the thing 👆 It all really depends on what you mean by "love" in this context.

I say I love my husband because of the deep connection and affection I have for my partner of 26 years. That we wanted to work through things our life together was very tough, because we enjoy each others company. I still love spending time away from him, he annoys me a great deal and he is not perfect. I don't think that negates the love.

It doesn't really matter if you believe in it or not, it's a feeling. You might not be particularly prone to feeling it, others might be more prone to it. Like anger or happiness.

You can't objectively say it doesn't exist without making a statement about every single individual's emotional state (right back through history, too)

Do you claim to speak for all humans, or just yourself?

@Watchkeys

Yeah, I already tried to explain in the comments that my post wasn’t meant to be personal attack on other people’s love.

I’ve just lost faith.
Maybe more that it’ll ever happen to me, so on this pretty miserable sunday night thought to check if there are other’s who don’t really ’believe’ in it.

Once again, wasn’t meant to take as a personal attack for the lucky one’s who have love in their lives.
Didn’t even accure to me someone would be offended.

Describe the emotion.

As it's a real thing.
Describe it.

Anger and happiness can be described.
Loneliness can be.

Describe love.

Everybody here describe it.

If it's real, all descriptions would be much the same, as they would be when lots of people describe other emotions.