A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:My question: Is love selfish?does someone only love because it makes them happy inside? would someone love a person who doesn't make them happy? look at these questions while you answer my question.- why do people stop loving a person? when they are bored of them. when they hurt them. when they betray them.but they stop the love b/c the love doesn't benefit the person anymore.so can't love be selfish? can one argue that love is selfish. one can say that they would give everything up in life for a certain person - but maybe they do it b/c they find that person more pleasing to them then other things.isn't then love selfish for that one person - when a person is fed up with crap from the person they're with then they end up leaving that person - thus doesn't a person only stay with someone for "love" when they feel like they are satisfied and when they are not they leave to find something else that makes them happy.so you love to see your own happiness.so wouldn't love be selfish.when i say love being selfish i mean the person honestly only loves themselves b/c in the end the person is with someone for his/her happiness - not really for the other person.what do you think? do you think it is a good argument. i want to write a paper for my English class regarding this issue b/c i honestly think that "love is selfish" but is this argument good enough. (well this is not an argument its just explaining my idea)if there are any questions regarding my question or anything unclear plz mention it to me and i will try my best to make it sound understandable. Reply to this Question
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male
reader, DGman  +, writes (27 November 2010):
Well this topic has run right from 2007 onwards. I hope the person who wrote got their answer. I really just googled "Love is not selfish" and I got to this blog. I don't have any great quotes to tell but...I KNOW I love this woman of my dreams...and she has her mind made up to marry my best friend. I have known this and loved her secretly never trying to interfere but a few weeks back she understood it ...after 7 years. Now they are to be married next year this time and I still cannot stop loving her. She reciprocates my love to her...but sometimes I get the feeling that she actually fills up the gaps that her boyfriend (my best friend) leaves in her life. He doesn't pay much attention to her and doesn't even care about her day to day life even though they live just a few blocks from each other and I live around 3000 miles away...and I've often crossed my telephone usage limits trying to be there with her all the time. Their families are agreeable on their marriage and it is most certain they will be married...yet knowing all this I choose to give her all my best for whatever time she needs and whenever she needs it. She makes love to me today (phone sex) because her BF doesn't even wanna touch her but I know tomorrow when they get married he'll want her in bed every night and although it kills me knowing that I still will keep loving her because I cannot feel about her any other way. She comes back from a place where she's thoroughly enjoyed herself and asks me to call her and she tells my best friend never called her the whole day, I inform her that she's missing him which she denies but if she didn't miss him she would have rather noticed that I was the only one who called her so many times in the day asking if she had enjoyed herself and she'd have noticed my sincere regret when she sent me an sms (jokingly) saying that I had not loved her enough that day, and I listen to it and try to make her understand that he does love her and I ask myself "Am I crazy?". I have had a lot of relationships in my life but this is the only one that I promised myself not to put myself before her happiness but to give her all that she could want from me without expecting anything back ...because in one life I have got half a chance to actually love someone for real and I'm not going to lose it.
Hope that answered your question/s.
A
female
reader, khea  +, writes (16 December 2009):
Love is selfish? This is just the same question I rather ask myself and an argument that been confusing me right now.
Love is selfish in some other ways as well as love is selfish as of many reasons. Loving is the same as what would/ could and should make you happy but sometimes loving is also the reason that made you unhappy. Considering things, decisions, priorities and contentment; these are mainly the perfect answer on why sometimes love is really selfish. You can't just say you love a person because he loves you in return but it can also be you love that person because he had given you the happiness that you wished, wanted and what you needed.
Everything change as well as people changes but the only thing that you can't change is the meaning of a word because it stays as what it is. Love never changed its meaning as it means to experience deep affection or intense desire for another, so that only shows loving someone is never said to be done ones or twice but it can also be a million times.
You learn to love because you learn to appreciate but you also learn to hate because you learn to defend your feelings and that feelings maybe because you're hurting, you aren't happy or just that you're not satisfied.
Call it selfish, call it unfair, call it as what you think is real but thats the fact loving is choosing the person who you think deserves for your love.
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reader, Dazzerg  +, writes (25 November 2007):
 Further to this...i produced a blog on the topic...is below
Is love selfish??
As my readers on here are probably not aware, I am part of a moderating team for a relationships advice site. An interesting question was posted the other day from a American teenager who was writing an essay on the question of whether love was selfish or not. She made a convincing case for the prosecution citing the fact that when a “person is fed up with crap from the person they’re with then they end up leaving that person” thus “only stay with someone for “love” when they feel like they are satisfied and when they are not they leave to find something else that makes them happy”.
Romantics would, of course, recoil at such cynicism but there can be little doubt in the real world that this is how things pan out. People do sometimes stay in unhappy relationships but it would be untrue that this is due plainly to a generosity of spirit; after all that persons lack of self-esteem or tendency towards emotional masochism, or ‘moth-to-the-flame syndrome’, can be factors that weigh just as heavily in that scenario. Equally some people equate love with suffering and view it as not being true love if there is no suffering involved; that is not to deny genuine selfless impulses exist it’s just to argue against them being the sole motivation for people sticking with an unhappy relationship.
Love is ultimately an expression with our desire to connect with the people around us and a way of mediating the gaps and intricacies of our various emotional and physical relationships that we form as we journey through life. This is the reason for ‘different kinds of love’ and for the definition of love being as highly subjective and individual as it is; for example, one relationship, that we have with those that provide for us as young is governed by family love. The need to procreate and find a mate is governed by romantic love; the need for companionship governed by friendship love etc, etc.
In all of these love’s we get something in return for what is given (or not as the case maybe). Having said that, there is an empathic tendency within most people to derive happiness directly from providing for the happiness and well being of another and fulfilling a sense of loyalty to another which can override our own tendency to self-preservation. I have just finished reading a not unsympathetic account of the life of Marie-Antoinette and there can be little doubt that her determination to stand by the side of her husband, Louis XVI, cost the hapless Hapsburg her life and that of her children too. Life is full of examples of such selflessness done in the name of love.
Selflessness is as deeply routed in human nature as selfishness and it can be said that a healthy dose of both has contributed immensely to the success of humanity as a species. Love is normally celebrated only for its selfless side but there is unquestionably a side to it that is self-serving and perhaps it is time it was celebrated as what it is; an expression of humanity both at it’s best and it’s worst.
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reader, calamitysil +, writes (24 November 2007):
 There are many different kinds of love. The love for family and friends, your pets, your children, some people love a "god", nature, romantic love, self love etc etc.
It's impossible not to have an element of selfish love in romantic love. When you love someone it's only natural to expect the other person to respond to you too. This is why unrequited love can be so incredibly painful. It's hard to love someone who doesn't feel the same way. When relationships have gone wrong, and people hurt each other in cruel ways, love doesn't immediately die. Some people hang in there and continue to be abused, telling themselves they love the other person despite the way they treat them. But is that love? Or hope that things can go back to how they once were? A certain amount of selfishness needs to exist, otherwise people have no self respect and allow people to hurt them over and over in the name of love.Love is respect, for yourself and the other person.
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reader, Frank B Kermit  +, writes (24 November 2007):
 My question: Is love selfish?
Check out the dictionary def'n of Love and Selfish.
Also, I think there is a difference between selfish and self-centered. Selfish is when you do things for your own best self interest. Self-centered is when you consider yourself above being good to other people, and only take yourself into account.
does someone only love because it makes them happy inside? would someone love a person who doesn't make them happy?
Becuase that person may address her emotional needs. There is a difference between what a person likes (being made happy) and what a person RESPONDS to (being with a person that makes her unhappy but that simutaniously addresses her emotional needs.
- why do people stop loving a person? when they are bored of them. when they hurt them. when they betray them.
Only if those things are a direct result of violating what the most important emotional needs are for her. If drama is important to her, then being bored is a factor. If trust is the most important, then betrayal is also. BAsically, love disappears when her emotional needs are violted either on a regular basis, or one big violation of an important need. This is where people are different.
so can't love be selfish? can one argue that love is selfish.
I see love as a result of emotional needs being met, not as the catalyst. I love my wife becuase she addresses my emotional needs as a man. She loves me as I address her emotional needs as a woman. We continue to do so out of love, so yes love is the insparation, but the love was a result of something first. Now, LUST, what some take as love...that is a different story.
one can say that they would give everything up in life for a certain person - but maybe they do it b/c they find that person more pleasing to them then other things.
Yup. If you were with someone that addressed all your emotional needs in a way that made you not want to live without that persons ability to address your emotional needs, then sacficing yourself is easier to handle than not being with that person.
isn't then love selfish for that one person - when a person is fed up with crap from the person they're with then they end up leaving that person - thus doesn't a person only stay with someone for "love" when they feel like they are satisfied and when they are not they leave to find something else that makes them happy.
Maybe when people are younger as it is easier to leave. WHen they are older, they have more at stake. They may have children, finances, and other concerns that make them stay in bad situations. Usually the deciding factor again comes to emotional needs. If a person's emotional needs are better addressed staying in a bad relationship, instead of breaking it off, then no matter how they feel, they will stay. And vice-versa.
so you love to see your own happiness.
I think your own happiness is what love grows from.
so wouldn't love be selfish.
In this context, then everything is selfish if done out of self interest.
when i say love being selfish i mean the person honestly only loves themselves b/c in the end the person is with someone for his/her happiness - not really for the other person.
Well, consider the opposite...would you ever be able to find love with someont that does not consider themselves in high regard? If they are not willing to fight for themselves, and go after the best for themselves, they could never do it for the relationships they are in.
I Hope you found this useful.
-Frank B Kermit, author of Everything out of her mouth is a test: A man's guide to the emotional needs of women
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reader, Dazzerg +, writes (24 November 2007):
Firstly, well done on constructing a very credible argument. I think your question is one of those ones where there is no definitive right or wrong answer just many different points of view. I dont think there is one absolute 'true' answer just different angles which articulate loads of different truths.
Humans like any other species on the planet you care to mention do have a strongly developed desire for self-preservation, there is no question about that. This is natural and to an extent forgetting that skews our perspective, nobody would accuse, for example, any other species of being 'selfish' simply for seeking to preserve itself.
However, the very fact that we have evolved mentally to the point where we can invent the concept of selfishness proves that we can also behave in the opposite way, selfless and there are numerous examples every day the world over of totally selfless behaviour, even somebody who gives up their seat on the bus is displaying that truly human impulse to put another before ones own comfort. Purely selfless people are a myth as are entirely selfish people, people are a complicated mixture of both impulses though some can weigh more one way than the other, of course. Love is pretty much the same, it can be selfish and selfless.
good luck with your eassy and i hope my thoughts have helped a little :)
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reader, anonymous, writes (24 November 2007): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questioni can see your point. but you accept that person b/c they can still hold your patience and as a whole it still is a benefit to you. however, say things went over board and then you left the person. then doesn't it show that you are selfish for yourself. if you feel like it is too much then you will leave. say your partner cheated on you. you would (most likely) i am guessing would leave the person, right? now isn't "true love" being with a person no matter what? or whatever it is. now if a person did something that went over your patience then you would leave them. however, with yourself that is not the case. you can put up with yourself no matter what. and you do want the best for yourself. and once a person goes beyond your limits then you will leave that person b/c the benefit that the person offered is worthless now b/c more flaws are shown and thus a person moves on to something (in this case someone) better who will satisfy their needs more. i know this is a bit unclear, but i hope you understand what i am trying to say.
maybe the word selfish itself is too harsh for this topic.... =/
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reader, anonymous, writes (24 November 2007): Yes absolutely. And I think that you will be making a very good argument. Love is entirely selfish, we as humans have labelled love to what in nature would be courtship and finding a mate and it seems that we have modified it over the years to mean exactly what we want - and that leaves the meaning of love different for each individual.
Love is selfish as we find love to make ourselves happy, to stop ourselves being lonely and to fill a gap in our lives.
On the other hand once we do love someone, the relationship lasts because of a mutual love and understanding and is a word used to describe sharing a lifetime together and there is nothing selfish about that.
Hope your paper goes well. You have made some valied points.
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reader, anonymous, writes (24 November 2007): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionactually i think my argument is more about "is humanity selfish" are we humans naturally born selfish?
my claim is - yes we are.
what do you guys think?
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