What I Think of Love
Nov. 11th, 2003 03:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morrigirlI don't think love is about "chemistry."
I don't think it is about shared goals or beliefs.
For me, love is about challenge. I can only truly love those who challenge me on a core level, who make me question who I am, what I value, and how I define myself. I think love should be transformative, so I only love those who can inspire me to venture beyond my comfort zone.
The few people on this earth that I've seriously been in love with have all been extremely different than me in key ways, ways that would have forced me to compromise had the relationships lasted. They have loved things I hate, and I think that's why I loved them. I loved the idea that they could teach me something.
Example: Jason, Dannielle, Marc, C boy, all of them were/are B I G nature lovers. We're talking "spend-the-rest-of-my-life-in-a-log-cabin-in-the-middle-of-nowhere" kind of nature lovers. Large chunks of their personality are based on their love of the outdoors. I, as we all know, am the exact opposite. I'm a bona fide city girl, there's no two ways about it. I detest nature, and try to avoid it when possible. My entire personality is built on that large city foundation.
yet....I was willing to put that aside for them. I was willing to let them show me why they loved nature so much, and I was even willing in a couple of situations (we all remember when I was gonna move up to Vermont with Jason,) to try and love it as well.
Maybe that's not the nest example but I think it gets the point across.
Continuing down this train of thought, and this is going to be an even more difficult thought to articulate, I find I can only love people I can also hate. These people I love all do or believe or adore things I despise (nature loving being a rather tame example,) and as such come to symbolize things I hate. But that hate is exactly what translates into challenge, which translates into love.
Jason challenged little apathetic me with his passionate politcal beliefs. And while he never quite succeeded in turning me into a radical socialist, the stuff I learned from him gave me reasons to be apathetic. So while I still have no faith in social activism, I now know exactly why I don't.
Dannielle challenged me by...well, just being a girl. I had to rethink my whole sexual identification because of her.
Clark challenged me by being a hypocritical self-absorbed asshole and accused rapist. He made me rethink all my rules about who its okay to interact with, and who it's okay to look down upon, not to mention what kind of behavior I find it acceptable to look down upon and what it says about me to define these parameters.
That's just a sampling. An all too brief smattering that probably makes zero sense to anyone but me.
That's okay though.
Though I can probably trace this whole love/hate idea back to my relationship with my mother, I don't feel like going into all that psychoanalytic crap right now.
I just know that my highest regard and deepest love is reserved for those who rock my foundation, who force me to re-make myself.
And I wanted to write about it.
I don't think it is about shared goals or beliefs.
For me, love is about challenge. I can only truly love those who challenge me on a core level, who make me question who I am, what I value, and how I define myself. I think love should be transformative, so I only love those who can inspire me to venture beyond my comfort zone.
The few people on this earth that I've seriously been in love with have all been extremely different than me in key ways, ways that would have forced me to compromise had the relationships lasted. They have loved things I hate, and I think that's why I loved them. I loved the idea that they could teach me something.
Example: Jason, Dannielle, Marc, C boy, all of them were/are B I G nature lovers. We're talking "spend-the-rest-of-my-life-in-a-log-cabin-in-the-middle-of-nowhere" kind of nature lovers. Large chunks of their personality are based on their love of the outdoors. I, as we all know, am the exact opposite. I'm a bona fide city girl, there's no two ways about it. I detest nature, and try to avoid it when possible. My entire personality is built on that large city foundation.
yet....I was willing to put that aside for them. I was willing to let them show me why they loved nature so much, and I was even willing in a couple of situations (we all remember when I was gonna move up to Vermont with Jason,) to try and love it as well.
Maybe that's not the nest example but I think it gets the point across.
Continuing down this train of thought, and this is going to be an even more difficult thought to articulate, I find I can only love people I can also hate. These people I love all do or believe or adore things I despise (nature loving being a rather tame example,) and as such come to symbolize things I hate. But that hate is exactly what translates into challenge, which translates into love.
Jason challenged little apathetic me with his passionate politcal beliefs. And while he never quite succeeded in turning me into a radical socialist, the stuff I learned from him gave me reasons to be apathetic. So while I still have no faith in social activism, I now know exactly why I don't.
Dannielle challenged me by...well, just being a girl. I had to rethink my whole sexual identification because of her.
Clark challenged me by being a hypocritical self-absorbed asshole and accused rapist. He made me rethink all my rules about who its okay to interact with, and who it's okay to look down upon, not to mention what kind of behavior I find it acceptable to look down upon and what it says about me to define these parameters.
That's just a sampling. An all too brief smattering that probably makes zero sense to anyone but me.
That's okay though.
Though I can probably trace this whole love/hate idea back to my relationship with my mother, I don't feel like going into all that psychoanalytic crap right now.
I just know that my highest regard and deepest love is reserved for those who rock my foundation, who force me to re-make myself.
And I wanted to write about it.
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Love is a Many Splendored Thing
Date: 2003-11-12 07:38 pm (UTC)To add to that, I have a LiveJournal now, too :)
~Abby~
Re: Love is a Many Splendored Thing
Date: 2003-11-12 10:17 pm (UTC)