What is the true definition of love?

  • Thread starter Loren Booda
  • Start date
  • Tags
    Love
In summary, love is an intense emotion that is very powerful when given unselfishly. Love is also patient, kind, and not boastful or arrogant.

With how many people have you been in love, if ever?

  • Never

    Votes: 15 31.9%
  • Once

    Votes: 15 31.9%
  • More than once

    Votes: 15 31.9%
  • Depends on the definition of love (see below)

    Votes: 2 4.3%

  • Total voters
    47
  • #1
Loren Booda
3,125
4
How many times have you been in love, if ever? Please describe your perception of romantic love, or what you believe love should be.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #2
I posted this on another forum about a year ago:

Love is vulnerability and aching, it is strength on the brink of destruction, it's a bottomless emptiness bottomed out. Love is committment and sweat, love is willingness and sacrifice, it is the height of altruism and selfishness melded into one. Love is a spark that excites every nerve ending any time a certain person's fingernail grazes the surface of your skin and any time her smile flashes before your eyes. Love is a controlled explosion in your heart that boils your blood and swells your extremities, it is quiet and magnificent, bold and risky, and it is the only thing I live for.

I can't believe I actually wrote that. I've been in love twice.
 
  • #3
I have never been in love. It is a shame.

Although I would love to feel what love feels like. :)
 
  • #4
Been in love once, and I still am (still married to her too!) :!)

Love, for me, boils down to 3 pretty simple things:
1. I care more about her than life itself.
2. I want to share all of life's most intimate moments with her.
3. She gives my life more meaning than my life has by itself.

Everything else is gravy. :biggrin:
EP
 
  • #5
Love is a weakness
 
  • #6
Smurf, why do you consider love a weakness?

I would have to disagree. But then perhaps that depends on one's definition of love, and then we could get into 'true love' vs . . . .
 
  • #7
Astronuc said:
Smurf, why do you consider love a weakness?

I would have to disagree. But then perhaps that depends on one's definition of love, and then we could get into 'true love' vs . . . .

I have to agree with your disagreement. Love to me is a wonderful strength. When two people are in love with each other, you always know someone has your back and will be there for you no matter what happens. You know each others strengths, weaknesses, attributes and faults, and wouldn't change a thing about them.
 
  • #8
Moonbear said:
When two people are in love with each other, you always know someone has your back
and then they stick a knife in it. :biggrin:

Been in love twice.

Loseyourname, that was very intense. :approve:
 
  • #9
"Love is when someone else's happiness is absolutely essential to your own." I don't remember who said that but I agree.
 
  • #10
Evo said:
and then they stick a knife in it. :biggrin:

I said when two people are in love with each other. Someone who really loves you won't stab you in the back. Well, tribdog might, but it would never be on purpose, and not with a knife; it would be some unfortunate accident with office supplies or toothpicks or shrapnel from something he blew up. :tongue2:
 
  • #11
Folks, don't forget unrequited love!
 
  • #12
Once and it hurt badly, but life goes on. And the search continues whether it's the F train, the subway, the bus stop, library, stores, work..etc, potential soulmates are everywhere
 
Last edited:
  • #13
Never. At my age, looks aren't as important as social standing (which usually but not always is associated with wealth), and unfortunately I have neither. So I don't see it ever happening to me. Unrequited love, I suppose it might happen one day, but I don't like betting on long odds. So I tend to avoid letting my feelings get too far in that direction.

Romantic love ... I wish you all the best of luck in that game.
 
  • #14
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.

Seriously though, love owns :redface: I'll have to go with more than once.

JasonRox don't fret! Atleast when you do find someone it'll be a bagillion times better! :biggrin:
 
  • #15
Love is certainly intense, and loseyourname describes the feeling quite well.

Love, if given unselfishly is very powerful. Love given selfishly, IMO, is not Love but meerly Desire.

Borrowing from a well know book:

I Corinthians 13:1-13 said:
1: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

2: And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

3: If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4: Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;

5: it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

6: it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.

7: Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8: Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

9: For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;

10: but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.

11: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

12: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.

13: So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
This is what I learned from both sets of Grandparents and my Parents.

I also draw a distinction between 'in Love' and loving someone. 'In Love' is simply infatuation and can quickly dissipate. Loving someone is long term.

When I was single, I considered every eligible woman as a potential wife. I knew a number of very nice women. The only problem - one man can only marry one woman - well, at a time. However I married with the intent of being married all my life or all her life, i.e. until death do us apart.

If one is young, do not despair - the time will come. In the meantime, think about what you will bring to a relationship, i.e. what do you have to offer another.

On the negative side, Love lost hurts, and Love betrayed is devastating. So Love can be a risk - risk of being hurt.

To love one's spouse (or potential spouse) is to give one's heart and soul, which are the most precious gifts given by one to another, and they are to be cherished and honored as such.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Likes Rainbow Rider
  • #16
Astronuc said:
To love one's spouse (or potential spouse) is to give one's heart and soul, which are the most precious gifts given by one to another, and they are to be cherished and honored as such.
legos are pretty precious too
 
  • #17
gazzo said:
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.
I've always loved that quote. :approve:
 
  • #18
Moonbear said:
Well, tribdog might, but it would never be on purpose, and not with a knife; it would be some unfortunate accident with office supplies or toothpicks or shrapnel from something he blew up. :tongue2:
Moonbear, the Sisterhood has decided to contact Troy Hurtubise and get you one of his "bear suits" and his "fire paste" to cover it. "Troy Hurtubise says he doesn’t feel the heat, even with a 2000° C blowtorch flame blazing at his head."

We're going to have everyone at PF pitch in and get you enough (as your wedding present) to cover everything in your house with it. :biggrin:
 
  • #19
Evo said:
Moonbear, the Sisterhood has decided to contact Troy Hurtubise and get you one of his "bear suits" and his "fire paste" to cover it. "Troy Hurtubise says he doesn’t feel the heat, even with a 2000° C blowtorch flame blazing at his head."

We're going to have everyone at PF pitch in and get you enough (as your wedding present) to cover everything in your house with it. :biggrin:

Paste sounds kind of messy. Can't we just add some of that fire resistant cloth to the bear suit? You know, the kind they make for protecting walls while soldering pipes? I have a small piece of it and it really can take the direct heat of a blowtorch (though it did start to get warm when I was working in a really tight spot and couldn't avoid hitting it continuously with the flame from the torch).

Well, with the bear suit on, at least I couldn't complain about being cold in the winter. tribdog might find it to be a bit off-putting on the honeymoon though. :rofl:
 
  • #20
"been in love"
Is this the same as 'falling in love'? or infatuation? or loving someone? There's also platonic love, parental love, etc etc.
And where is the border between liking someone and being in love with someone? what's 'real' love?

something to ponder about.

anyway, I think I found my 'true' love. she makes me feel all warm and fluffy inside :)
 
  • #21
gazzo said:
JasonRox don't fret! Atleast when you do find someone it'll be a bagillion times better! :biggrin:

That's what I hear anyways!

One day, one day...
 
  • #22
Loren Booda said:
Folks, don't forget unrequited love!

*sighs* Been through that. Horrible. Such longing for something I will never have. It creates the worst emotions imaginable. I remember them well, they infested my being and wouldn't get out. It evoked, among other things, a great deal of loneliness and many 'what if' scenarios. The more emotionally attached I was to that person, the more difficult it was to cope with the resultant emotions that followed. :frown:

In my opinion, unrequited love is just another form of love, as are all forms. All different forms of love can show the way to what we may know as "true" love, but these forms do not show the way to get there. During my time of emotional heartbreak, I realized that I probably will never achieve the picturesque "true" love but rather a lesser form of it.

Difficult times.

*sighs*
 
  • #23
JasonRox said:
I have never been in love. It is a shame.

Although I would love to feel what love feels like. :)


Nah, the whole "better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all" is a load of crap really.
 
  • #24
gazzo said:
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.

Seriously though, love owns :redface: I'll have to go with more than once.

JasonRox don't fret! Atleast when you do find someone it'll be a bagillion times better! :biggrin:


More like ice wolverines.

But I'm cynical and jaded. Don't listen to me.
 
  • #25
motai said:
*sighs* Been through that. Horrible. Such longing for something I will never have. It creates the worst emotions imaginable. I remember them well, they infested my being and wouldn't get out. It evoked, among other things, a great deal of loneliness and many 'what if' scenarios. The more emotionally attached I was to that person, the more difficult it was to cope with the resultant emotions that followed. :frown:

In my opinion, unrequited love is just another form of love, as are all forms. All different forms of love can show the way to what we may know as "true" love, but these forms do not show the way to get there. During my time of emotional heartbreak, I realized that I probably will never achieve the picturesque "true" love but rather a lesser form of it.

Difficult times.

*sighs*

Don't feel too bad. Even Cary Grant wasn't Cary Grant when he was younger :smile: Have fun, enjoy life
 
  • #26
Well, i know guys all love his mom and dadn so at least every1 "fall in love" twice :biggrin:
I really do Love my close frineds, still i vote that i fall in love "once" since i guess we meant da...u know what i mean :biggrin: And i am sometimes hoping that if i had not fall in love, it sometimes REALLY painful when the other person turn his/her back.

Still, i do vote for "love fomr one side" as the most painful kind of love :approve:
 
  • #27
Cohen's lyrics for
"Hallelujah" sum up an experience of it nicely:

baby I've been here before
i've seen this room and I've walked this floor
i used to live alone before i knew you
i've seen your flag on the marble arch
but love is not a victory march
it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

...never been in love, came close or maybe I was just feeling ecstatic/euphoric
 
Last edited:
  • #28
when i got engaged... it may have been love... maybe just craziness... but i consider that to be once...

and whozum, if we can find a way to afford it, will visit me... so hopefully i'll then be able to say twice...
 
  • #29
loseyourname said:
I can't believe I actually wrote that. I've been in love twice.

I can't believe you actually wrote that either. That belongs on some kids blog.
 
  • #30
Aw, after reading a few posts, I discovered I ticked the wrong choice... I've definitely never been in love more than once. :uhh:
 
  • #31
This is when you are O and this when it is finished o all squashed and yuky.
 
  • #32
Love between two adults who know what they want from each other and are serious about the relationship is strength.

I don't think it is weakness as some of you have written above.
 

Similar threads

  • General Discussion
Replies
28
Views
1K
  • General Discussion
2
Replies
54
Views
3K
Replies
13
Views
705
  • General Discussion
Replies
11
Views
1K
  • General Discussion
2
Replies
43
Views
2K
Replies
8
Views
1K
Replies
8
Views
657
  • Biology and Medical
Replies
5
Views
2K
  • General Discussion
Replies
15
Views
1K
  • Poll
  • Biology and Medical
2
Replies
44
Views
5K
Back
Top