Things I think I know. Unfortunately, knowing them didn’t seem to do me much good. Maybe I understand them a little bit better know...or maybe I have no idea what I’m blathering on about. Either way, enjoy. (^_^)
Lust, infatuation, limerance: Perhaps sometimes called “falling in love”, but I think there’s a reason we have so many words besides “love” for it. Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s only physical. We have little or no control over it. It just happens to us. Note that, while love is blind, infatuation is simply ignorant. It is also fleeting. It isn’t bad, but it is important to realize that it isn’t really as wonderful as it feels.
To feel loved: You feel love when other people do certain things for you. The analogy is sometimes made to deposits in a bank account or filling a tank with fuel. Enough deposits in your love account, and you feel loved. The trouble is that some acts of love may mean little or nothing to you and others everything. And it varies from person to person.
So, since this is about what other people do then—like infatuation—you have no control over it. Right?
Wrong! It may seem romantic to think that two people will find each other who naturally fill each others love tank with just the right fuel.
If you don’t know what fills your love tank... If you don’t tell your partner what fills your love task... If you hide the gauge... If you lie when asked what the gauge reads... You’re leaving feeling loved up to random chance.
To Love: Love is a verb. Love is an active verb. Love is a choice.
Can it really be put so simply as: To love is to put someone else before yourself.
Love can last, but—being an action—to make it last, you must keep doing it. You must fill the tank, and it helps to know the right fuel for the engine that tank is connected to.
So, where’s the romance in all of this?
I don’t know. I always thought of myself as a romantic. I’ve never been very good at being romantic, though.
I don’t think romance is being a slave to basic impulses. I don’t think romance is trusting to chance. I do think that to have any chance of finding true romance, I have to understand the things above.
3 comments:
limerance. See? The Internet is a place of learning. I've never heard the term. Had to look it up. Will I be able to recall it when just the right circumstance presents itself? That is the test of learning, is it not?
You sound like you may have read, or may enjoy reading Gary Chapman's Five Love Languages (click) book(s).
Yeah, I’ve been re-reading that book a lot this year.
I woulda said that love is equating someone else's best interest with your own. You look at Jake and say, "What's good for him is good for me." That choice is love.
But it's pretty much the same as what you said, anyway.
Post a Comment