Why do people get upset if I say that I don’t believe in love?

[CantAskAnyoneElse]

To be clear, I son’t start lecturing anyone, it’s just that quite often friend or family members ask me how come I never have a partner etc.
Usually I just shrug my shoulders and try move the topic, but few times I’ve said honestly that I just don’t believe love is an actual thing.
Once again, I don’t start speeches, just quick honest remark and move the topic.
Never said anything about anyone else’s partners/lack off…

And let me tell you!
This does NOT go well.
People are adamant I am wrong, sad I’ve ’given up hope’ (I haven’t, it just was never there), soon I’ll meet someone and change my mind (doubtfull) and how I can’t say something like that.

Why not?
I do not understand, at all.

[Butchyrestingface]

I’d be lying if I’d just say ”I’m unable to love”.

Not following how this is a lie. You're NOT able to love, surely that's the truth? Other people can, but you, apparently, not.

[LolaSmiles]

And I think it hasn’t been meaningful to me, because watching all these people have these relationships and then break-up’s, someone new, no that wasn’t it, okey now this, no - get rid…
Round and round.
Like was there actually anything there, ever.
No wonder they're taking your statements about love not being real personally. Just there the way you're talking about it minimises and dismisses people's experiences in favour of a really bitter worldview.

I don't think you can go around telling people you don't think love exists and then be surprised that they work out that you be think their relationships are based on nothing.

[Tibtilkobkob]

It was never the main point of my comment which was the fact you (wilfully or not) misinterpreted pp's comment but I suppose it suits you to divert onto this instead. Re qualitative: I explained exactly what I meant in my last comment. Re-read if unsure.

[Putple]

Are you Autistic OP?
I can see you've been asked this a couple of times and you haven't answered, I'm just curious that's all :)

[Thatdarncat4]

@Ohthebanality

@Thatdarncat4 Your reply to my post was nasty. I may not have expressed myself that well but I meant no harm. There was no need to say the things you did to me.

I apologize if I misinterpreted you saying it’s ‘your loss’ to the OP as a personal insult to the OP. If you did not mean it as an insult I stand corrected.

[Notegoat]

’And I don’t think ’most’ would ’happily’ die for their kids, that’s silly. Self preservation would kick in pretty soon’

It sounds like it’s something you are incapable of and don’t understand. You find it easier to say it doesn’t exist rather than recognising that it’s something lacking in you. Most parents would risk their own life to save their child. Many people would do that for any child, even a stranger. People drown trying to save their dogs FFS.

[Thatdarncat4]

@Tibtilkobkob

It was never the main point of my comment which was the fact you (wilfully or not) misinterpreted pp's comment but I suppose it suits you to divert onto this instead. Re qualitative: I explained exactly what I meant in my last comment. Re-read if unsure.

Sorry but you’re rambling now!

[ThereIbledit]

@Butchyrestingface
I’d be lying if I’d just say ”I’m unable to love”.
Not following how this is a lie. You're NOT able to love, surely that's the truth? Other people can, but you, apparently, not.

But she doesn't believe that love exists.

I don't believe that flying humans exist.
I'm somebody who is unable to fly.

The latter implies that I believe that other people can fly. (let's not complicate the hypothetical by bringing in planes and jetpacks please!).

Not to mention in the love example, if you go around telling people who sound interfering and nosey that you're unable to love, they're going to take that as even more of a challenge to prove you wrong 🙃

[usethedata]

I think yours is a very philosophical view on what love is. It sounds similar to the debate on whether altruism truly exists as in all examples of apparent altruism you could argue that the altruist does in fact benefit in some way, even in just the feel good factor of a charitable act.

So your argument is that even what others call love is, to you, a mutually beneficial situation or exchange, and therefore it is not real. This is where I question it. Does the fact that it is mutually beneficial really mean that it is not real? If I think about my children, I feel a strength of what I call love for them that is very powerful and feels unconditional. I feel like there is nothing they could do that would make me stop loving them. And I very often make small and big choices that benefit them and hinder me. But I can't say that it I don't get anything back from that relationship either. I get immense joy at their laughter, amusement at their humour and so on. Amd probably there is some evolutionary aspect of continuing the species in there too although not something I think about.

But we will have to differ on our opinion of whether the fact that it is mutually beneficial means it is not really love?

What I think many people will struggle with is that yours is not a conventional or common view, and your insistence that you do not believe love exists for anyone feels like you are saying that what i describe as my love for my kids is either nonsense or a lie.

And I also don't think whether you believe love exists or not is the reason you are single. You have acknowledged that what others may call love you may call some sort of mutually beneficial relationship, however transitory. That still leaves the question of why you don't want that! So really the answer is still that this is not a type of relationship that you want

[Tabitha888]

Love is real, it a chemical reaction in the brain... Google it

[toodlesofoodles]

I think you do you. I don't believe in god, I tell people I don't but I don't tell them they also shouldn't.

You not thinking love is a thing doesn't mean I don't love my DH. I'm sorry your family can't get their heads around your difference in viewpoint OP, that must be hard for you. If you feel love towards them then just reply I love you all I just don't believe in romantic love and change the subject

[Regularsizedrudy]

And I don’t think ’most’ would ’happily’ die for their kids, that’s silly.
Self preservation would kick in pretty soon.

Surely if your looking at it from a biological something or other “kicking in”, it would make more sense to believe parents would die for their children, the natural instinct to pass on their family line or whatever. Isn’t that what all animals are set up to do by evolution? So you could of course argue that this isn’t true love and just biology taking over our monkey brains. But then aren’t we all just monkeys ascribing meaning to things?

[Thatdarncat4]

@Tabitha888

Love is real, it a chemical reaction in the brain... Google it

So one definition of love and hopefully your definition of love has been proven to cause the same chemical reaction in the brain for all those that experience love which includes your your definition of love? BTW what is your definition of love? Please enlighten me and provide the link to the research you are eluding to. Thanks 😊

[LolaSmiles]

toodlesofoodles
I think it's a bit different to the god analogy though. If someone says "I don't believe God exists" they are saying by extension that they don't believe that the god of someone else's faith exists. You're right it's a you do you situation, and the person wouldn't be saying other people should stop their religious acts. It's a different opinion on something with limited evidence either way.

But for someone to say that they don't think love exists, they are saying that other people's human relationships aren't based on love. Like they're sitting there with the truth and all the people who have loving relationships are foolish for believing their relationships are based on something that is documented. It's really insulting. Though they say they've not shared it openly, you can see that the OP's got such a bitter outlook on other people's relationship and it would be difficult to avoid that sense of bitterness coming across.

[CantAskAnyoneElse]

@LolaSmiles

And I think it hasn’t been meaningful to me, because watching all these people have these relationships and then break-up’s, someone new, no that wasn’t it, okey now this, no - get rid…
Round and round.
Like was there actually anything there, ever.
No wonder they're taking your statements about love not being real personally. Just there the way you're talking about it minimises and dismisses people's experiences in favour of a really bitter worldview.

I don't think you can go around telling people you don't think love exists and then be surprised that they work out that you be think their relationships are based on nothing.

Literally my next sentence was:
” To be clear, never said anything to anyone.”

I have no idea why you left that out.
You must have some kind of agenda to purposefully leave out the very next thing that clearly stated I have never said it out loud.
And then build a scenario around something that has not happened.

Just to clear this out, I don’t want anyone to think Lola’s LIES are something I’ve done or said.

[Ohthebanality]

Love is a chemical bonding mechanism which we need for parents to bring up children, for people to have children, to make us happy and to feel like we are cared for and protected. I don't think the human race could function without 'love'. Don't call it 'love', call it evolutionary bonding mechanism or something. Its the same thing though. Humans need it.

[Ohthebanality]

Children who grow up in orphanages with no love fail to thrive.

[CantAskAnyoneElse]

@Putple

Are you Autistic OP?
I can see you've been asked this a couple of times and you haven't answered, I'm just curious that's all :)

No, I am not.

I ignored them, because MN has a habit of pathologizing and everyone who doesn’t have exact same thinking pattern as them are queried about autism.
Absolute no offence to any one on the sectum, it has just become such a lazy fashion around here, that’s all.

[Eddielizzard]

So you have absolutely never, ever felt love for anyone, ever, at all?

[IncompleteSenten]

What do you imagine love would feel like?

I know you don't believe there is such an emotion but you do know that many or most people do believe there is/feel that they experience it. If you were to describe it, this feeling people call love, what would you say?

[IncompleteSenten]

By that I mean step outside yourself for a moment and think of the people you know and what you've seen of relationships and behaviours and try to articulate what you understand/observe.

[Augend23]

I think what's really confusing me about this, is that you were asked about other emotions - i.e. sorrow

You said you feel that emotion.

If you met someone who said they didn't believe sorrow existed - i.e. they didn't believe anyone felt sorrow (rather than saying they had not felt sorrow), wouldn't you feel that was something they weren't qualified to say? Because YOU feel it, and you're the only one inside your head who can truly know or not know whether or not you do feel sorrow.

So if you're saying "I don't feel I have loved or been loved" that would be about you. But saying love doesn't exist at all, for anyone, you're saying that the thing the other person has experienced doesn't exist.

To me it's like saying "thoughts don't exist, they are just electrical impulses transmitted by neurons within the brain" - yup, that's right, that is what they are, doesn't mean they don't exist. Love may be oxytocin, or some other neurotransmitter/hormone/formation of electrical impulses combined with the above. But that's all anything we think, say or do is really, so the fact that it's composed of/caused by a set of neural impulses or whatever doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

[Greenfairydust]

''@BentleyRhythmAce

@beastlyslumber

Isn't that the definition of a psychopath? Someone unable to feel love? I don't know, but I do find it quite creepy.
Yep, this.''


No need to be overly dramatic.

Some people have no interest in romantic relationship (aromantic, asexual, simply not bothered with having a partner...) full stop. Some conditions like autism can also make it harder for people to have ''normal'' interactions with people. Some people go through trauma which makes it harder for them to relate and trust people.That doesn't mean all these people are Hannibal Lecters in the making.

Being a psychopath is not defined by not believing in love.

Instead they lack empathy, remorse and display various anti-social traits (lying, manipulating, law-breaking, hurting others) as well as difficulties controlling their behaviour in general.

[beastlyslumber]

Hardly over dramatic. Saying that someone who doesn't feel love (of any kind, not just romantic) is probably autistic is a bit insulting towards autistic people. I know lots and they all have normal human emotions.

[CandyLeBonBon]

@beastlyslumber

Hardly over dramatic. Saying that someone who doesn't feel love (of any kind, not just romantic) is probably autistic is a bit insulting towards autistic people. I know lots and they all have normal human emotions.

My son is autistic and he absolutely talks in these sorts of terms