love is

[vibrant]

for those of you who think that love is a choice, not a feeling, i have a question for you: how come you can't just choose not to love someone? look around at the angst filled posts about how people can't stop loving past loves, or loving wrong people, or use your own life as an example. does this change your perception of what love is?

 

[waterbear]

You can choose to not love someone... it's a rather ugly process but emotional distancing can be systematic. My notion of love is fairly chosen, it has different forms based on the role the person has in my life. These forms I decided on years ago, at least many aspects of the forms - they aren't entirely concrete yet

 

[Carri20]

for those of you who think that love is a choice, not a feeling, i have a question for you: how come you can't just choose not to love someone? look around at the angst filled posts about how people can't stop loving past loves, or loving wrong people, or use your own life as an example. does this change your perception of what love is?

The problem is that people often confuse love with infatuation. Infatuation you have very little control over, if any at all. Love on the other hand is a conscious choice, and you must work hard to maintain it when it would be easier to just walk away and find yourself another infatuation. I don't believe a person can experience true love until the infatuation phase has passed, and according to experts, that can take years.

 

[hazeleyes80]

You can choose to not love someone... it's a rather ugly process but emotional distancing can be systematic. My notion of love is fairly chosen, it has different forms based on the role the person has in my life. These forms I decided on years ago, at least many aspects of the forms - they aren't entirely concrete yet

I agree. Choosing not to love one person can be easier than choosing not to love another person, but it's definitely possible. I know this from personal experience. My personality did not make figuring out the process very easy. I had to develop a way of thinking that didn't quite come naturally to me, but I did make it happen eventually.

 

[the_man]

for those of you who think that love is a choice, not a feeling, i have a question for you: how come you can't just choose not to love someone? look around at the angst filled posts about how people can't stop loving past loves, or loving wrong people, or use your own life as an example. does this change your perception of what love is?

I think love is a choice. But I dont' think it is only a choice. If love were only a choice, then one can arbitrarily choose to love anyone. We know this is absurd so it can not be the case. It must have something else in addition to the choice. This is the feeling component to love; I will call it infactuation. To me infactuation is not a terrible thing, healthy infactuation that is.

Unhealthy infactuation is based off of very limited knowledge about a person. For example, you've said hi to a person and they wore a cute outfit that you like, and then in your mind (based off of that limited knowledge) you build a personality for the person and expectations on how they behave and imagine a seemless future together. That is unhealthy infactuation.

Healthy infactuation is infactuation is present after some gained knowledge of a person. Healthy infactuation makes both parties want to gain more knowledge in addtion to what they know (while unhealthy is content with the limited knowledge it has). Healthy infactuation in most relationships last a couple years. When this infactuation dies off, it is replaced by a deeper love that is borne out of knowledge of a person. Lewis uses an example of a man who is fascinated with planes as a little boy. He holds models in his hands as he waves them about making noises to imitate flight. This boy doesn't know the inner workings of a plane or how to fly one, yet he is enamored by them. This fascination is the infactuation phase of love. Now 10 years as a commercial pilot, his love for planes changes. It is a quiter kind of love that is rooted in experience, knowledge and appreciation of planes. This love is so much more deeper than the love he had as a boy. This is the commitement phase of love.

 

[JPPT1974]

Love is also a feeling that comes from the bottom of your heart. As well as also knowing that it is who you care about and think that they are special in your sight. Love is also putting that person you love in your heart. Love never envys, hatred, nor is impatient.