Difference-love for gf and love for bestfriend

[Skhandelwal]

What is the difference b/w love for your soulmate and passion for your sport/career?

 

[Skhandelwal]

Besides physical attraction, mentally, is there a difference b/w love for who you care about and love for who you are attracted to and care about?

 

[DaveC426913]

What do these two things have to do with each other?

What question do you really want the answer to?

 

[Skhandelwal]

Sorry, I messed up, I have fixed it now.

 

[DaveC426913]

Clearly you have some thoughts on the matter. You might get more interest if you elaborated.

 

[Skhandelwal]

Well, I am talking purely about mental love. The feelings you have for your best friend and feelings you have for your gf, if we exclude physical attraction, hormones level, etc. Is there a difference? If not then does love exist? Or is it just hype for romantic movies and greeting cards?

 

[Gelsamel Epsilon]

The confusion is that in english the word love works for both situations. That is all.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Besides physical attraction, mentally, is there a difference b/w love for who you care about and love for who you are attracted to and care about?

I think Gelsamel Epsilon has probably honed right in on the problem here. We are handicapped by one word that is used for two fairly different things.

If you were to sit and write out your feelings in detail for each situation without recourse to the word "love" then the differences ought to become clear.

Well, I am talking purely about mental love. The feelings you have for your best friend and feelings you have for your gf, if we exclude physical attraction, hormones level, etc. Is there a difference? If not then does love exist? Or is it just hype for romantic movies and greeting cards?

If you exclude physical attraction and hormones from what we might call "romantic" love you are really talking about an artificial mental construct that doesn't exist in real life. Usually when people mentally experiment with trying to subtract those things from the equation it means they are becoming uncomfortable with how unreliable, short lived, or erratic those things can be, and wonder if there is ever something more permanent behind it all that they can depend on to last.

Am I close?