Do you believe in love? (Ask guys)

[sadgirl_april]

I dated a guy for more than a year and we recently broke up. He is 39 years old now and never married. He said love is just hormon and needs! I wanted to know if other guys believe in love. Please, if you are a guy, age between 33-40, tell me what you think of love. Thanks a lot.

[fmfisdead]

I am not of that age bracket, but I do believe in love. And sorry I'm answering your post anyways! . Anyways, I think people use this as a mechanism to deal with hurts, everytime i've ever talked to a person about this sort of thing, they were usually hurt bad in the past or shunned by society somehow. I think everyone wants to believe in love, some people just use it so they can explain why it failed and maybe this guy is just making excuses.

[Beec]

Yes, I believe in and am in love. Hormones and needs have something to do with love, but not everything.

[Day_Walker]

Yes I believe in love. Its a multi-faceted emotion some of the attributes that could be seen as bad while others are seen as good.

[chai714]

I believe in it, and I'm sure the majority of people do. I'm not in your anticipated age bracket for your survey, but I don't see my believing in love ever changing. It hasn't changed in the past 26 years, but I have learned that we can do things that affect how others feel about us.

[DN]

I'm not in the age group either but I believe in love as well.

 

Otherwise, what makes the world go round?

[sadgirl_april]

Thank you guys. I set the age range because he once said in his toastmaster speech, that he was worried his heart got harder over the years and he might lose the ability to feel love again. By the way that speech tape was made a few years ago. Thus I hope those guys who aren't married yet in the 30's would give me some hints.

 

I know DN is happily married, of course he believes in love.

[Mr. Cactus]

Hi there,

 

Well I turn 40 sometime next year. I've never been married and I have never had a girlfriend or any sort of relationship at all apart from friendships. I certainly believe in love. I believe I have experienced the feeling for myself. And I look to other people such as my parents who were a very clear demonstration of what love is all about.

 

I do believe in the adage that love can be just "hormonal" or "chemically driven". I am sure that constitutes that lustful sort of crush / love in the early stages that gives us all those tingly and euphoric feelings. But I certainly don't subscribe to it being hormonal in very long term relationships. Or if it is, it's sure the longest lasting chemical known. I just think if you look at the most wonderful, long term relationships, it has to be a lot deeper than that.

 

I don't know, as I say, I have no experience with relationships. But I guess true love is something like what I might feel for a family member, except that of course there is the much deeper intimate component (emotionally and physically) that needs to be fed and which differentiates it from other sorts of love.

[Napoleon Bonaparte]

We are all ruled by our appetites (with certain pragmatic appetites keeping the others in check) . We are basically a collection of emotions using our cognitive as a means to fullfilling these emotional appetites.

Love is basically symbiotic. It is when we try to merge with another person. It's almost like conqueoring and wanting someone so much we want to be absorbed and conqueored by them. It's a neverending pull with the lovers (esp the one who loves more) giving up a piece of their own being and sometimes individuality. Coe-dependence are people addicted and needing to survive in such a state. Love is sado-masochism and it uses many of the same area's where neurotransmitters thrive as opiates do. Basically it's a cocaine high.

[ComputerGuy]

Im only 20, but I do believe in love. It's an indescribable feeling to be in love with someone, and its something that I reckon those who dont believe in it are really missing out on.

[sadgirl_april]

Napoleon Bonaparte: are you saying you don't believe in love ? Do you always think so, or start to think so after some age?

[Napoleon Bonaparte]

I am saying love is basically scientific fact and was giving you Jean Paul Sartre's interesting take on it with a little of my own. Of course I believe in love. I don't think the existence of it is much of a contreversy. The guy you were talkin' to know it exists too and has felt it before. He probably got burned

[Shinobie]

yes i believe in love.Its something ive wanted for awhile.

[ShySoul]

If love didn't exist then this world would be a very cold and empty place.

 

Love is more then a chemicals, its more then science. It's more then a feeling or notion. Love is what guides us to do better and improve ourselves and the world. It is giving to someone else simply because you want to see them happy. And in turn it makes you a better person for it.

 

Love is what drives us, motivates us. It is what makes the world go round. (Wait, thought that was gravity )

 

Love is one of the things that I consider the cornerstones of life. Without it, what is life all about?

[Napoleon Bonaparte]

Honestly shy that is silly idealistic nonsense you are spouting off. Typical simplicity of youth. Greed, hunger, power, fear, hate, anger, curiosity, these all play a role in running the world and sometimes under false pretenses, trying to make the world a better place. I am not always altruistic out of love. Sometimes I simply do the right thing and try to make the world a better place because I a) can B) that's what I was taught too. Sometimes empathy and creation comes from suffering and if there is anything that can be destructive, it is love. I don't think any other sourve of emotion has inspired more hate and death in this world than love. I am not being jaded. I am not being cynical. I am just being matter of fact. And every emotion/feeling is mired in chemicals and physical persona. Not all love is good or healthy, just as not all fear is bad. You have a very unrealistic viewpoint of the universe if you really believe what you just said. Unfortunately life is gonna change that if you don't prepare yourself.

[zkor-man]

Love ,what is Love??? I am not sure now ,that i've ever felt it. Now that i'm goin through a ruff period of my married life , I realized I married for all the wrong reasons..What I often described or felt as "love" was everything but that..I can tell you now that all I had and probably still feel for my wife is LUST (not to be confused with LOVE)..I realize, I am a massochist for still hanging around her, of course there are the children now maybe what I feel for them is love. But I am not sure yet.. I believe or guess that older folks (60's-80's) have a better understanding of what "LOVE" actually feels like..We live in a selfish (ME) society, so how can it be possible to love thy brother more than self??? Maybe that is why it hurts when we "break-up".. If it was "LOVE" that we felt for that other person, then it should'nt feel like pain..This is a deep subject...and i'm probably not making sense. All i know is that I believe in true LOVE, but haven't experienced it ,yet.!.which saddens me. ..in a way..

[ShySoul]

I'm only five years younger then you Napoleon, what do you mean youth? And if you knew my life you would know that my view is anything but unrealistic. I know full well what a lousy place this world can be. I know feel well that selfishness, greed, corruption, lust, power, etc. seem to run things. I know that the world is far from perfect. I know that love isn't always magical. I just mentioned in another post about my mother loving guys who ended up up emotionally and physically abusing her. My cousin and brother have both had marriages that honestly never should have taken place for all the trouble they were.

 

But that doesn't mean I have to give into these things. Out of these horrible things can come something good, if they people learn from it and realize that they shouldn't be the same way. Thats why I hold my beliefs, because I've seen the negative consequences that comes from thinking like you do. If you believe that the world has to be like that, then you won't put in the effort to change it, you'll most likely give up assuming nothing you do will matter. But if nothing that we do matters, then all that matters is what we do. We do what is right out of love and compassion. And in doing so we show that all these negative things can't control or us or take over. Evil can't win as long as good is there to oppose it.

 

True love is good, the kind of love that is not healthy is not true love. It may be lust. Or it may be a one-sided attraction. But its not love.

 

I tell you, think about this quote. It'll change the way you look at things if you open yourself to the message. Do what is right, live as though the world was as it should be, fight the good fight because you can. Don't just give into how things are, create a better future.

 

"Nothing in the world is the way it ought to be. It's harsh and cruel. That's why there's us. Champions. It doesn't matter where we come from, what we've done or suffered, or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be."

[Mr. Cactus]

lol Napolean. All grown up I see at 27 I guess you have seen the world, decided everything there is to know about it and conquered it, eh? Well with 11 years up on you my friend, I liked very much what ShySoul said. I couldn't have put it better myself. Sounds like you are carrying around a few to many chips on your shoulder.

[DN]

I agree with Mr. Cactus - ShySoul's image of the world is one I prefer - and I am a good bit older than any of you. Age may give you more experience on which to draw but it does not necessarily make you wiser.

[Napoleon Bonaparte]

All grown up? No. And I don't think how long you have lived has anything to do with maturity anymore than I think that being mature all the time is a good thing (it makes you disenchanted, pretentious, and boring.)

I can say I have had experiences that you, in your eleven years age difference haven't had, and I have experienced a lot of the same experiences you have, and I have kept my eyes open imperically on what I haven't experienced. These were both really good experiences, and really bad.

However rather than simply disagreeing with me, none of you have picked a apart my argument. I am not being cynical, simply realistic.

Nor am I attacking love. I am simply pointing out that, that guy's argument is very black and white and doesn't take the human condition in it's entirety.

Furthermore, I am confident that good things ( like love) often have nasty results, however that doesn't make them any less legitimate than the good results. (and that applies to other positive pursuits than romantic love99 the road t hell is paved in good deeds blah blah blah I hate cliques) If someone loves someone, they can love them as truly anybody, and still do a tremendous amount of negative to that person. Even abusers & cheaters can love the person they abuse. People are sometimes prone to destroy whatever has value in their life because they are arrested by their own self-loathing.

If a relationship becomes unhealthy, and one side becomes harsh towards the other, it doesen't mean there was only lust or one sided love.

Finally, I argued that there were other sources for compassionate, altruism, and generosity, than love. You don't believe that? Think about it.

[volution]

Have you seen/read Les Jeux Sont Faits?

 

Spoken like a true existentialist

You must have been disappointed deeply by some experience in your life - there must have been a time when an illusion or something was shattered, and you haven't ever really recovered...

I don't speak this with disdain or disrespect, but many people are born with an innate dream of love, like shysoul, and then an experience or experiences totally upset their applecart, and they never really regain the dream or the hopes, and the mundane materialness of the melancholy world sets in...

Greed, hunger, power, fear, hate, anger - these are what help destroy that dream of love.

Chemicals do have a part to play when we feel emotion - but consider this... when you pinch yourself in your arm, where do you feel the sensation? In your brain? No... In your arm? And how do you feel it in your arm? A pain receptor in your arm sends a message to your brain which sends a message back to the arm... But how do you feel it in your arm? What causes the feeling? You must have some extrenuous entity that experiences that actual feeling - and that is the soul...

Love only destroys when it becomes fear...

[Napoleon Bonaparte]

Actually I am not always that cynical when it comes to love. Yes I have had bad experiences. Yes I have been disapointed in life. (who hasn't?) However I do not dogmatically believe my disapointments are the rule or the way it always has to be. I believe that there can be positive and negative consequences to love. I am in actuality, quite the romantic.

However love can be destructive in any number of circumstances, and usually, whenever you are dealing with powerful emotions like that, there comes a point when there is almost always fear.

Greed, power, ideology, fear, curiosity, creativity, when I mention these thing I am pointing out that these are also motivations that cause things to get done in the world, not just love. Many great leaders and artists have done great things where love wasn't (at that moment) a primary motivation. Me, I have helped people before. Sometimes out of love, but sometimes quite simply because I could/ or out of curiosity.

Existentialist? Sometimes. Not always. I believe in objectivity and subjectivity -- relativity and absolutism. I don't think all these things are always mutually exlusive from each other.

[fmfisdead]

To be honest, I think we need to step back from simply bashing Napoleon for his ideas and look at them for a second. As with every philosophy lesson I've learned, it is always best to look at all the arguments and take what is good from each argument. The "cynical" argument that Napoleon is making is just as important as the "dreamers tale of love" by lots of other people. I think sometimes when someone points out a realistic argument, we become uncomfortable, we don't want to think it may truly be that way and I admit that I do this too. We dismiss it as cynical babble or a person who has faced a lot of rough times and no longer believes something good can happen. Which I'm not saying is the case at all, All I'm saying is you really need to take into account both perspectives and apply what it is you find to be most fitting to your life. Besides, all of this is theoretically speaking anyways. And now that I've added nothing to the argument I shall go now.

[bg22mh]

its out there .... i find myself wondering that from time to time. but keep plugging good things come to those who wait (and dont compromise)

 

if its possible to enjoy singledom (yes!) , have a stab at it. you'll be amazed. after a while it really does change you for the better.

 

i have broken hearts and i have had my heart broken

 

between now and the time i meet stated she in the grocery store or elevator or wherever she pops her head, im livin my life.

 

walk down a quiet street listening to your favorite song and think about what an awesome, interesting, attractive being you are and be comfortable in the knowledge someone out there who is right for you will find you

[wlfpack81]

Love for family as in mom, dad, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins....obviously yes and I have that.

 

Love for (in my case) in terms of a g/f....no b/c I don't think I'll ever find a girl b/c of my shyness.