Do I Know What Love Is?

by - Saturday, September 03, 2011

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, and I've started to question whether I even know what love is.

I know what lust it... and infactuation.

And I know what it's like to be comfortable.

But I don't know if I really know what love is.

I think it's really sad to be questioning this fact considering I have been married, and I am just out of a long-term relationship.

But I don't know if I ever truly loved either of them.  I know that there were probably some inherent love moments, but I'm wondering if I have some sort of mental block about letting go and loving.

For fear that I won't be loved back I guess.

When does love kick in?  Is it really something that can be defined? 

Is enjoying being with someone and sharing the same interests as someone enough to be love? 

Do you need to fall into the stereotypical definition of intimacy to be in love?  Should a percieved lack of intimacy not make you love someone?

Is a willingness to just let go and move on with your life a sign of a lack of love?

I wish I knew the answers to my questions. 

I know it's probably just the circumstance, but I'm wondering if yet again, as with my marriage, that I was just in it because I was comfortable, I just wasn't the first one to be able to admit it.

I did a quick Google search... it seems like Foreigner and Mariah Carey (both with songs titled "I Want to Know What Love Is") need to take a lesson from Celine Dion, who apparently already knows (her song is "I Know What Love Is").

I wonder if Celine will enlighten a fellow Canadian in her knowing ways?

You May Also Like

3 Comments

  1. I like to think that with each relationship you learn and grow. At the time, you thought you loved them. But if things go in the right direction, the next time you will feel differently, and think..."wow that wasn't love".

    You have to see what you don't want to know what you do want!

    Unfortunatly we have to fill our lives with a bunch of "that wasn't what I wanted's" before we find the "this is exactly where I am meant to be's"

    If you didnt think at the time you were in love, certainly you wouldn't have been there, right?

    Just trust that you are headed in the right direction! And the hardest thing to do is trust your gut, but that feeling is there for a reason.

    Listen to it! And in the mean time, keep learning. I'm hopeful that the wait, is going to be sooo worth it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are right. I totally agree with you, Fizzgig.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think that knowing you for as long as I have, I can say I would be surprised if you didn't have a hard time letting go and loving someone. It is hard to just leap into things on blind faith when you're not sure what type of response you'll get back. I used to always do that, and now I am so paralyzed with fear I can't even GO on a date!

    I think that my last few relationships even though I said I was in love and I hurt when things ended, I don't think I was really in love. When I compare it to how I felt when I know I was in love, it didn't feel the same, so maybe we can only tell when things are over.. or maybe there are just different feelings you get when you fall in love depending on timing and chemistry. Personally I probably would have dropped any of the other ones if the first one had come back into my life. I think that I was looking to feel something.. anything.

    I think sometimes we get hurt so deeply and so completely that we just have a really hard time getting past that. I think if I was really to define being in love, I would have to say I've only been in it once.. all the rest of the times have just been marking time. I have been settling for "Well they really like me" or "I like them"..

    As for some of your questions:
    I don't think love has a timeline.. it doesn't kick in at any certain time. I don't think it can be defined, I think it comes in a lot of forms.

    Sometimes enjoying someone and sharing the same interests is enough to make you love them.. sometimes not, it depends.

    No and no.

    I don't think a willingness to move on doesn't mean you didn't love the person, but maybe it means you can't see a way of fixing it and you know that hanging onto the hurt is just going to hurt you more. That being said, I still have not managed to let go or move on from Brad, so who knows. It is probably different for each person.

    I know you aren't alone in your questions, I think most of us have the same ones, or other ones that are similar. Love is confusing.

    ReplyDelete