Quote:
Originally posted by KSig RC
Realistically, the term "love" is abhorrently subjective, and if the "love card" is played in a scenario where it has no real relevance ("I love you but I'M NOT IN LOVE!!HARHARHAR"), it's a cop-out and is being used as double-speak to make the guy feel better.
You can love your friends, as some have said - but I would (and will) argue that this type of love is 180 degrees left of center from "LOVE!!!" in the traditional sense. You can "love" your parents and your friends, but anyone who thinks you easily scale back from LOVING (sic) your boyfriend to loving (sic again) your boyfriend is probably working the situation to her advantage.
Look, love is just like any other subjective term - definition is the hardest part, and as such it will be abused by the definer to his/her best advantage. Hell, I've done it, and I very well know that 70% of you all have too - but you DO NOT mean the same thing when you say "I love my friends!" and "I'm in LOVE!!!!"
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I had this same conversation with my best friend only two days ago. She's not sure if she's capable of really loving THE guy (who, for the record, doesn't exist yet, so this was a totally pointless argument). I told her that by looking at the strength of her friendships, you can tell she can love her future perfect man. She thinks I'm full of s--- because she didn't love her last boyfriend. So here's how I explained it:
You love your family, even if you don't like them.
There are friends that you like, but don't love.
You can both like and love your good friends, but you don't loooove them.
You can loooove a guy you're with without really liking him or loving him.
You can like and loooove a guy without loving him.
You can like and love a guy without loooving him.
In a strong relationship, you're doing all three.
Here's what all that BS means. The "loooove" part is when you're "in love" with someone, aka romantic, attraction-type feelings.
"Love," whether you have it with a friend or a romantic partner, that part of it's kind of the same across the board. I consider it the feelings of caring, respect, admiration....basically, all the aspects of a close friendship.
"Liking" someone involves being able to carry on a conversation and spend time with a person for more than 5 minutes without wanting to vomit or choke them or both.
When you're talking about most healthy long-term relationships, they contain all of those aspects to a degree. Obviously you liked the person, that's how you got together. You were in loooove with them when you found you were attracted to them and liked getting all over them. The love part grew as you became closer and wanted to spend time with that person whether they were putting out or not...basically like a close friendship. That friendship, respect and admiration "love" is enhanced by the romantic feelings and attraction which is what makes it special, but it doesn't make loving a significant other 180 degrees away from loving a friend.
Most of the couples I know that have a strong, lasting relationship are friends above all else. As I told my friend, if you would stay with someone even if their goodies fell off in the war, you know you love them. Doesn't mean you're not attracted to them or that you don't love the intimate part, but that person's a valuable part of your life regardless of the physical aspects...just like your close friends are. Unless they're "friends," but that's a whole different ballgame.
So a girl who says she loves someone but isn't in love with them has caring, friendly feelings towards the boy. However, once the initial excitement wore away (which it inevitably does) and the physical, romantic parts calmed down (ditto), she didn't love him enough as a friend to want to stay in the relationship. Once it got to the point where they had to actually talk and be good friends, she probably realized that she only really liked him when he was putting out all the time.
