A
female
age
26-29,
anonymous
writes:I am absolutely sick people saying that love is a mutual feeling and if the other person doesn't feel the same way then it's not love, so I thought Id ask what peoples definitions were. Mine is that love is selfless, undying. You put them in front of yourself and would rather them be happy than persue them. Reply to this Question
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male
reader, bini magna  +, writes (21 September 2012):
 to me love is caring,sharing,sex,fighting and immediate reconciliation and love is love.
A
reader, anonymous, writes (21 September 2012): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionI don't have a crush on anyone and if I did, I am smart enough to know it couldn't be love, I just wanted to know what everyone thought and was stressing the fact that I disagree that both people have to feel the same feeling for it to be love. I don't believe there is a true definition to the word as it is an emotion that humans cannot yet explain profoundly.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (21 September 2012): The english language uses one word, love, to describe a multitude of experiences, which is why there are so many definitions of the word love. These different definitions are (mostly) valid, which means that when two people are talking about "love", they might be talking about two completely different things. Its a good idea to find a way to understand what other people mean when they talk about love, and to find a way to express what you mean when you talk about love.
You might talk about love as the feeling you experience internally, and someone else might be talking about love as the experience between two people. Some talk about love being selfless, others talk about love as being a kind of desire. For some it is more of an idea or concept, for others it is a feeling. Some show it in what they say, others in what they do. For some it is abstract, for others it is concrete. There are sexual definitions, emotional definitions, intellectual definitions, spiritual definitions, definitions that only apply to family. Etc.
You describe your idea of love as being selfless and undying, so you might like my favourite written passage on love. I'm not religious, or christian for that matter, but its from the bible, 1 Corinthians 13:
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.
4 Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8 Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
13 And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Originally the word love wasn't used, the word used was charity, implying charitable love, love for the common man, or for all things, as a rough translation from the ancient greek "agape".
I like the idea that love is our true nature, a way of life or way of being in the world, an identity - who we really are, and that by having this nature we are bound and connected to everything in the universe, that we should think of everything else as an extention of us, a part of us, no different.
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reader, anonymous, writes (21 September 2012): Love is respect. Love is being honest and caring. Love is reciprocity to the fullest.
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female
reader, So_Very_Confused  +, writes (21 September 2012):
 I agree that love is selfless... that you want the other person to be happy even if it means letting them go...
But I think your asking this because you "love" someone who does not return your feelings... the reason I think this is because you say you are "sick [of] people saying that love is a mutual feeling'
sounds to me like you have a crush on a boy and you keep saying you love him or are in love with him and your friends keeps saying "no it's a crush"
The problem is that you are right about love but your friends are also correct in that it's a mutual thing when we are talking about people...
for example you are dating a boy... and you love him and he loves you... then in a year, he falls out of love with you but you still love him... he tells you he loves another and although it kills you you let him go to her even if she does not know about it yet... THAT is love...
loving someone you have not ever had a relationship with is not love... that's a crush.
the selfless part of love is just one aspect of it.
I love my fiance...
I love my kids
I love my dad
all four of them are men I have relationships with. All four are men I love... but I love my kids differently than I love my dad and I love my fiance differently than I love my blood relatives. I want all of them happy
I love my girlfriends. they love me. I have different levels of love for different friends. I have one friend I would take a bullet for... truly.... and she has saved my life on at least one occasion.... I love her madly... but differently than anyone else...
BUT the key is that all of them folks I interact with on a regular if not daily basis....
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