I'm a self-confessed cynic when it comes to 'love'.
Mhmm. It's true. Love at first sight is complete bollocks, teenage infatuations are just embarrassing, and fairy tale happy endings with the Prince Charming are unrealistic, improbable, impractical and nauseating.
That said, if the dictionary definition of love came round my way, I'd be happy to take it.
Oxford Dictionary, 'love': a strong feeling of affection.
A strong feeling of affection? That's not love, idiot, that's how I feel towards my cat! Excuse me for assuming the role of love expert [because I'm really not] but the kind of love you should see between a married couple - that's more than "a strong feeling of affection", isn't it? Shouldn't that kind of love be more like, "the feeling that accompanies having a best friend whom you trust and depend on enough to get your relationship officiated, if you can. You'd do anything for them. Lay down your life for them, if necessary, and do it gladly because to you, nothing is more important than for them to be living happily and, if sacrificing everything achieves that, you want nothing more than to sacrifice everything because it's for them."?
Strong feeling of affections are felt between friends - don't get me wrong, if that is love then I love my friends unconditionally - which is, I know, the first step towards 'love' love, but affection can't be the be all and end all where love is concerned. I struggle with the idea that what I've felt up 'til now is all there is. A questionable romantic history compiled mostly of fleeting fancies and creepy ex boyfriends are okay for a girl of my age who's barely scraped the surface of what life and love have to offer, but as we mature and grow and come into ourselves, there has to be more. I firmly believe that this isn't all there is, just as I believe there is someone for everyone if you look hard enough. [That's as far as my cliched love-beliefs go.]
A strong feeling of affection can be mistaken for an overactive libido, in any case. Casually getting naked with someone is not love, just as friends with benefits is not love, just as using someone to get what you want, to make someone else jealous, to pass the bored time, isn't love. I wish the word wasn't thrown around as much as it is, supposedly in the sense of which I am talking and defending. You see it all the time, even preteens copying what they see on the telly and getting worked up about telling someone how much they love them and the feelings not being reciprocated. If they didn't see 'love' all the time, they wouldn't take it for granted, per say. If they didn't take it for granted then they'd learn to have respect for it - it's a powerful word, and, when said in a romantic sense, should be taken very seriously. Except it's not, is it?
I don't even know what brought that on.
Quote of the day: There is always some madness in love, but there is always some reason in madness. [Friedrich Nietzsche]
3 comments:
O.o
"love" can be "a strong feeling of affection", because the dictionary does mean the love for your cat aswell as love in a general sense...so I think your response was harsh on the dictionary collective. Just imagine trying to cone up with a phrase that can summarise every sense of the word "love", it's not easy...
(not that I can talk!) :)
Love can also be the complete trust in another person to never do anything to hurt you. The kind of love that would allow you to put your life in the hands of another. Thats the kind of love the bibles always talking about. Anyway, i there is such thing as love at first sight i've found it in this song, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip4Tfa-2W18, i love it.
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