love a choice or an emotional state?

do you think love is a feeling and you just know when you love someone or do you think you make a conscious decision to love someone and then go with it?

 

Romantic love is an emotional state that is triggered.

The choice to be loving and a kind compassionate person is the choice side of love.

But I have a feeling you meant the former.

 

You can choose who you fall in love with to the same extent that you can choose who you're attracted to .

 

love is what your brain does when it hates you. be nicer to your brain, and maybe it won't feel the need to torture you like this.

 

As far as involuntary feeling goes, love is peerless. In reality, though, there's actually little you make a 'conscious decision' to do or feel - what the troglodytes call free will has no basis in science or philosophy, and is just some shit your masters like to have you believe is the 'root cause' of what misfortune you may have stumbled on (as in poor people's 'decision' to be poor, rather than successful investment bankers, white color criminals, etc.), culminating in this ridiculous notion - popular in New Age circles - that we 'choose' our experiences. You don't 'choose' shit, or otherwise everyone's lives would be non-stop pornography, with no other responsibilities than to experience as much pleasure as often as possible. Luckily, reality intervenes, and soon enough, you learn there's all kinds of shit that isn't 'fun' or 'pleasurable', but needs negotiating all the same. I know there's a tendency to think of love as somehow detached from 'reality', as in the expression of seeing the world through pink tainted glasses, but I think, on a psychological level, love is an involuntary gesture by which you are consigned to a world of real things and people. It is the overcoming of the petty mind-trips of narcissistic fantasy, and reckoning with the Other.

 

So true. However, I would note that some people (religious psychos in particular) would choose a life of constant evangelical practice over the non-stop pornography. Naturally, I choose the latter .

 

I have loved 3 men...I'm not counting the trial runs that took place along the way.

At any rate, within the first 10 minutes (probably closer to 5 minutes), I KNEW.

It didn't feel so much like a choice as it felt like inevitable chemistry - on every level. Love, and yes lust (which goes with love) is an emotional state, but I'm not sure it is a choice.

 

is it temporary madness?

 

that's what I always figured.

 

i think it's funny when people (girls) claim that they KNOW. Love and chemistry can be fabricated. In essence, that is what a smooth talker is.

 

I don't believe you can fake chemistry. You either have it or you don't. You can certainly fake attraction to make the person believe you truly want them. But with chemistry you really do "know" if it's there or not.

 

I agree with this perspective.

Smooth-talkers, in the first place probably don't even care about genuine "chemistry", they're just either selling you something, working as a decoy to get you pick-pocketed by a partner, or are a con-artist set out to hoodwink you financially, murder you, or just outright want to get into your pants.

If two or more people have "chemistry" I think most people, if they're wise, would realize they got something special and try a serious relationship with that person.

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Now to a point I've found that sometimes when two people have "chemistry" one or both parties may be oblivious to the potential romance that could blossom. I believe in those circumstances a really good friendship could result instead, but that the ingredients to spark a romance from that friendship, if it contains chemistry in the first place, is always a possibility. That's what I end up seeing in many romances among my friends that have suddenly blossomed from a friendship, and as an outside party, I'm like "I KNEW IT! I thought there was some tension between you two people! Congrats."

 

Falling in love isn't a choice, but the elements of love that are needed to maintain a relationship (trust, forgiveness, caring, compromise) is a choice.

 

Hey sorry can I just ask a quick question? Its kind of off topic and its totally cool i you just want to ignore this but I'm really upset and I need an opinion

 

Most young kids idea of chemistry is shallow these days. Flings & club scenes are also usually definitely not chemistry, but the other person knowing what NOT to do to falter chemistry.

Two people getting along is NOT chemistry. There's a simple science behind it. We all socialize so again, it really is fabricated. Sometimes it's easier and a lot more effortless to create this utopia... but it's still all ego and making calculated decisions as to what to say.

So your biases match up and you both think you're hot enough for each other to be around -- you think that's chemistry?? LOL.

(& some people are better at creating this vibe. Some people, DESPITE BEING GOOD PEOPLE, have social flaws that prevent them from putting a good foot out).

If you believe hardcore in your ego, that your personality is something you draw your sense of self strongly from, then I can totally see why you'd want to also believe in chemistry, some reverent power, bringing two egoes together.



Not saying chemistry doesn't exist but perhaps people use it a lot sooner than they should.

**Shit also gets complicated when you deal with [semi] ego loss & not having social impressions on the top of your list... or waiting for the social world to see things differently and judge others based on traits beyond "Can they keep a fun conversation going?"

 

i grant you permission to make a post.

 

Fuck, I wish I could draw on the actual experience to give an answer. Generally though, if I were to go on times I've think I'm close to love, it's not a conscious decision. It's not a feeling either....it's a reaction (or maybe that is a feeling). A number of variables come together that result in the reaction of love. To take it further though.....commitment is a decision. Commitment cannot last on love alone.

 

what's the question??

See this is the argument I was having with my friend when I made this post. And yes, the two of us have both experienced ego loss. He was thinking from your perspective and I, from the opposite. You see, the thing is that I am, philosophically, an essentialist. Although I believe that life and truth are pragmatic, I (unlike some postmodernist thinkers -- who would likely be closer to your side of this argument) do believe that there is something essential leftover when you strip away the many layers of the ego, and therein lies whatever part of us it is that 'falls in love.'

It's a tough debate though. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe love is an emotion that is nurtured over time and can be fostered with any person that fits closely enough, but I always considered that to just be the part that comes after.

I'm really not sure about this one. To be honest, I hope you're right, because right now I'm in a bit of a pickle. You see, I feel as if I love someone who doesn't seem to want me(but I've never been in love before -- so I don't really know how to identify that emotion -- and I don't know if the feeling that this person gives me is what people call love or what).

 

The way I see it is don't overthink or overanalyze your feelings. Listen to them, and identify if there's attraction, and for me there's always this gentle overtone in how I identify that I might love someone, but that's just me.

If that's established, go look at where the two of you are from a pragmatic perspective, and see if it works or not. Pursue them further or move on, and don't be a creepy stalker clinger.

 

That’s a contradictory statement. Chemistry is either there, or it’s not. So you can’t do anything stop the creation or dissolution of it.

I completely agree. Chemistry is not simply “getting along” or being hot enough to be around each other. I’ve had great chemistry with people I didn’t get along with all that well. I had an ex that I would constantly butt heads with, but we had amazing chemistry together. If we ended up in the same room today, I'm sure we'd likely butt heads again... but you can bet there'd be some chemical "activity" happening between us .

I think you’re confusing “lust” with chemistry. The 2 are not the same, but can easily be confused or misconstrued. Lust would be what you witness in a lot of flings and club scenes. I’ve had a lust with a lot of girls, but I can count the times I’ve had that special chemistry or connection with a girl on 1 hand.