Quote:
Originally posted by sororitygirl2
I've joined this conversation a bit late, but I think it is entirely possible to love someone and not be IN LOVE with them.
Don't you love your friends, relatives, pets, etc? But are you in love with them? I hope not!
You can love many people througout the course of a lifetime, and many people at once... You can be IN LOVE with many people throughout the course of a lifetime, but only one at a time.
I think, for many people, being IN LOVE shows a level of commitment that love does not...
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ie they're TWO DIFFERENT THINGS!
So when you 'scale back' on a significant other, attempting to parlay one into the other is a cop-out, an attempt to soften the impact of the words to make it easier on both parties.
If that's how you feel, fine, go ahead and say it - but all I'm saying is that the reason why these two things exist under the same name is not purely coincidence, it is that most of the time usage is a cop-out. Every instance I've seen, including WHEN I DID IT, it was a cop-out . . . I'm sure there are exceptions, but as a general rule, that's what I'm saying. If you don't have the sexual attraction or whatever it is that makes you in love, OF COURSE you won't be in love with them - but "in love" and "love" are apparently two very different things, according to all of our posts, and by simply renaming your emotional attachments you do not make any more clear the situation. This makes it, to my mind, a very clear cop-out - one party uses it as a crutch, under the guise of making it easier on the other party (regardless of the truth of the statement - which is an entirely different argument).
Therefore, in response to the original post (by James), I think that the whole thing is prattle - most people aren't versed well enough in their own emotions to explain how they feel and deal with the consequences, so "I love you but I'm not IN LOVE with you" was created to cop out.
Does that make any more sense? I feel like I'm repeating myself, but maybe restatement will lead to a little bit better understanding.