Bika

Love.

As in the kind you find in a relationship between two (mature) people. Is it any different to the love of of a child? The love for a child? For a friend? For a parent? For (your) God?

Edited to clarify for those with reading comprehension difficulties.
Not a broad dictionary-scientific-non-personal definition.
What is love to you?

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silverwriter

I think love is love is love. Where you get the differences is when lust or infatuation or other things like that come in.

You love a woman and you love your child; there's no difference there. However you lust for your woman but you don't lust for your child. Side things make the differences.

As for a straight definition, let me work on that.

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The Space Cowboy

Love is incredibly broad. When someone says the word love, it is as uniquely personal and as complex as that person's fingerprint pattern. The way a person loves and perceives love is a product of the culture and society they are raised in, and the way it is practiced and shown around them. For instance, if a person grew up with emotionally distant parents, chances are when that person has kids he will also be emotionally distant from his children, but will also believe and consider that he loves his children just as much as any other man or woman.

There are plenty of people who no longer lust for their wife, and there are also plenty of people who lust for their children and also consider their love for these people to be equally as deep and meaningful as you feel for your children//spouse.

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Bika

How do you define it for yourself?

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The Space Cowboy

I don't know. I've never thought about that sort of thing because it doesnt really seem necessary to me.

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wmd

Actually there is a BIG difference there.

Do you have children? The feelings you have for your own child are far different than any other kind of love experienced to that point.

And you can seperate love from lust and compare just the love. They are different when it is your spouse vs your child.

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Bika

Please, don't argue with other people's opinions. Just state your own definition, if you have one.

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wmd

?????

I wasn't arguing, and I was stating my opinion.

I have a 3 yr old son and another due in January. Before I had my first I would have said that love is love no matter who it is, but experiencing the love that a parent has for a child, I now know that there is a difference.

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Hodge

Love is a catch-all emotional attachment that causes massive confusion between people due to its lack of differentiation between a girl loving her male friend and being in love with him.

The Greeks had something like 13 different words for love because of this. We have one. Many also seem to have some sort of idealistic malfunction where they think love is supposedly more than just an emotional attachment, in which case I posit that my anger with these people is more than just being pissed off: it's a transcendant state where I am able to put aside all other differences and focus on just one, which allows me to become closer to that person than any other in order to mete out my judgment.

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Science

Bika

Forget I asked.

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CPiseco

I could never figure it out. Even with all my different girlfriends over the years, that's been a word I've never understood. I've turned to friends, family, teachers, pets...I could never get a straight answer as to what it meant.

So I turned to Merriam-Webster...the warm fuzzy blanket of vocabulatorial comfort.

Main Entry: 1love
Pronunciation: 'l&v
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English lufu; akin to Old High German luba love, Old English lEof dear, Latin lubEre, libEre to please
1 a (1) : strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties <maternal love for a child> (2) : attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3) : affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests <love for his old schoolmates> b : an assurance of love <give her my love>
2 : warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion <love of the sea>
3 a : the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration <baseball was his first love> b (1) : a beloved person : DARLING -- often used as a term of endearment (2) British -- used as an informal term of address
4 a : unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as (1) : the fatherly concern of God for humankind (2) : brotherly concern for others b : a person's adoration of God
5 : a god or personification of love
6 : an amorous episode : LOVE AFFAIR
7 : the sexual embrace : COPULATION
8 : a score of zero (as in tennis)
9 capitalized, Christian Science : GOD
- at love : holding one's opponent scoreless in tennis
- in love : inspired by affection

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"May fortune favor the foolish."

Wyndstar

I can just picture Hodge in a toga languidly sipping hemlock...

The terminology 'Love' I find extremely loathsome. People use it too much to excuse their addictions. I can't imagine one person telling another they 'love' them, which is supposed to be a 'positive' thing, and using it to impose, in reality, a certain sort of slavery that demands they never 'love', be emotionally, intellectually attracted to, or have physical feelings for anyone else as long as they are with that person. How is it that anyone can say they 'love' someone and then put conditions on it? I'm not even sure that humans are capable of the 'ideal' of love, given that we're such a selfish, self-centered species. Or given what we're taught about love. I'm not saying that humans are incapable of the ideal. I believe we're so brainwashed, most of us wouldn't know the real thing if it smacked us upside the head.

That being said, there are those I myself have loved for many years, both male and female that I don't even get to talk to for months at a time. They have wandered into my house I wander into theirs (one of which I impose on in New Orleans every year). I do not need them to exist, I'm not obsessed with them, sometimes we grow bored with one another, sometimes we get mad at what the other has done (what they have DONE, operative word there). Can't explain it, don't care. We all fit inside eachother, if something happens, we're there. We don't judge, we'll snipe but--we're there. When my dom gf yells at me for being too uptight during a game, I bitch, know she's right, her hubby says I never change and why does she bother, and she answers "because I love her", and I give in just enough to still be me. There ya go.

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Old enough to know better, young enough to think I can still get away with it.

wmd

You ask a question like that and then get mad at the answers that are posted?

Why don't you loosen up a bit?

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Foxee

Bika, I think it is a good question. You didn't ask what the definition was according to the dictionary or according to the Greeks (although, that is the first thing that I thought of) you asked how we define it for ourselves.

This is a good question because I usually go by definitions set by someone else. But love? I think you are in part asking how we experience it... a living definition from each person's POV. (at least that's what I'm getting out of the question)

I guess I'd say that for me love is one of the least passive emotions. Love, whether it is for a child, spouse, or friend requires that I tolerate their antics, give them the benefit of the doubt, and help them when the chips are down. I can guarantee that I won't always LIKE those I love, but I will always love them. Why? Because, unlike infatuation (also considered 'love') enduring love is a matter of the will... not just the glands.

Anyway, that's my shot at it.

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Try the POSTCARD FICTION CONTEST! Closes for entries November 19. Can you write a story in 350 words or less?

Hodge

Not the answers, just mine.

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Science