Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    Knowing that no matter where you are someone special is thinking
    of you. To me it is that feeling of lightness when your so glances
    your way and you know that no matter what he/she/it does they will
    always worry and care about you.
    
    Love is something you feel in your heart an euphoric ecstasy which
    can only be reached by finding someone who can make you smile, laugh,
    tremble when they touch you and shake yourself to the very core
    just by looking into your eyes.
                                  
    
    A romanticist at heart.........

     
        Being in love always makes me burst out in fits of spontaneous
        laughter - a bit like being insane ! If that's insanity give
        me more.
    
        be lucky,
    
        Steve

    When you care for someone else's growth more than your own.

    What .5 is saying is more what I'm asking.  We all know what it FEELS
    like to be "in love", but in any relationship of duration that feeling
    is going to fade.  
    
    My definition (since I started this one) is: 
    
    Being willing to put my own needs away for the time being when his
    become more important.  To conciously work with him, not pull against
    him. To look out for his best interests all of the time.  To celebrate
    his growth as a person.
    
    

    And, being as we're fallable humans, put "try our best to" in front
    of most of the statements in the definition in .6.  I know that
    I don't always think before I act, even my actions affect someone
    I love.  I would also add that love is trying to see someone
    without putting rosy glasses on, no matter how comfortable the
    glasses may have gotten.  You need to see clearly in order to
    truely support someone and help them to grow.  Also, if you love
    someone you need to be good to yourself, so that when they need
    you you will be strong and capable, and so that you will grow
    as they grow.
    
    --Louise

    In my past experiences, I think I've loved one person, but the 
    feeling didn't last as long as the relationship (4 years).
    
    I think love is something that grows with time (I don't believe
    in "love at first sight") and could possibly last forever if both
    parties love each other.
    
    In most of my relationships, however, one person always loves more
    than the other.
    
    Nancy
    
    
    

    .5 and .6 have the right approach from my perspective.  "caring
    for someone's growth more than your own" is the ultimate lesson
    of  romantic love and the lesson is pushed to it's limit through
    the vehicle of marriage.  "Being willing to put my own needs away
    for the time being when 'His'(my quotes) becomes more important."
    Why are these concepts only limited to special romantic situations?
    in my mind romantic love etc. are just stepping stones (not different
    from) the altruistic love that Jesus, as a Messiah, was trying to 
    teach Personkind.  In my view, Romantic love,and even puppy love,what
    ever the personal description of love is, is not different from each
    other, just sub-sets of the larger scope of  altruistic LOVE that 
    Jesus and other Masters attempted to teach.
    

    When everything else settles down, that pure bliss that sends chills
    rippling over the skin.

    RE .10 Letting someone you love go is probably the hardest part
    of all, but isn't that our responsibility if we truly love them?
    We all have to face the fact that a parting will come, whether it
    is through divorce or death.  Don't we have to accept that as a
    part of living?  Since we raise our children with the knowledge that when
    we have "grown" them they will leave us, don't we also have to take
    the risk that is involved in allowing others around us to grow?
    
    RE .11 I am in agreement with what you are saying.  TRUE love is
    not limited to any one situation.  Can you imagine the world we
    could live in if people could truly act this way toward one another?
    
        Idealistic?  Yes!    Unrealistic?  Maybe!    Impossible?  No!
    
    

    I reply in batch so forgive me if someone has expressed this here....
    
    
    Love, to me, is caring about another person's happiness, well-being,
    and growth more than your own. Sometimes it even includes "letting
    go."
    
    Ken
    

        To love is, according to what I've written all over this
        conference, "to value, care for and consider another person as
        much as you do yourself". This is an action, something you do,
        and should not be confused with the passion of "being in love",
        which is a feeling about some-one you love.
        
        Being in love is when someone is so important and exciting to
        you that their presence, physical or psychological distracts you
        immensely. It is when you can get them of your mind--no matter
        how hard you try them come back unbidden. It is when a small
        smile from them can melt away a mountain of hurt. 
        
        Then, of course there is lust. Lust is pretty neat. It is,
        basically, a completely physical version of being in love. It's
        when sexual excitement and interest reaches the levels of being
        in love. You can lust after a person that you have no interest
        in as a person. Lust to the exclussion of being in love or love
        itself is basically distructive as it leads to depersonal-
        ization. Lust conjoined with being in love can strengthen the
        being in love, and add spice to it. Both lust and being in love
        can strengthen love, but neither are necessary to it.
        
        JimB. 

    re .15
    
    Maybe to really be in love means that you can deal with the
    needs of another person instead of calling them "chains" and
    leaving.
    

    LOVE it can only be when, that person is not around you will miss
    so bad you cannot stand it. and when they are sick you don't want
    to leave their side until they are well. when they are hurt for
    whatever reason who hurt as bad as they do. no matter what happens
    you only care about their happiness. you might say this is being
    in love, but how can that be, you can be in love with your truck,
    but would you follow that to the end of the world.
                                          terry

    re.19  It's called "Empathy", a very important part of a relationship.

    Re .5 and .6:  if dsomebody is always putting themselves or theri
    needs aside for the other, thenthis is not love.  Love is intertwined
    independence, not one person constatnly prevailing p-hysically,
    emotionally, preofessionally) over the other.  It's a balance of
    needs, desires, and lives.  if 

Is it love when you know someone special, can't forget about them, no one
can compare to them, and you pine the rest of your life away?

Jim.

|Is it love when you know someone special, can't forget about them, no one
|can compare to them, and you pine the rest of your life away?

|Jim.


NO! That's infatuation, which is a different (but somewhat similar) phenomenum.

			Nigel

    Is young love different than mature love?
    
    Seems a lot harder to fall in love at 48 then it was at 16. *sigh*

    
    I also suspect that as you get older you notice  the risks of love
    more...
    
    dana

        I don't know about you, but love is just as exciting now as it
        was when I met my wife a little less than half my life-time ago.
        The marriage is a commitment and at times hard work, but the
        loving is easier with every day, and more fun and more
        rewarding, and it does conquer all. 
        
        JimB.

I fall in love just as easily at 35 as I did at 16.

Perhaps it's infatuation, not love.  Maybe it's only a crush.

I get crushes just as easily no as then.

One difference is, people don't *talk* about "who likes who" and "who
has a crush on whom".  It's kind of sad.  I miss those days, actually.

So I guess what's different is that so many crushes and falling in love
are secret and hidden now, rather than purposely leaked as they were 
when I was 16.

Also, being married now, falling in love and having crushes isn't
as accepted anymore, perhaps another reason it's kept hidden.

*sigh*

    I have to second this!  One doesn't tell one's husband about the crush
    one has on the good-looking new man in one's husband's group,
    particularly when one is approaching the age where said new man is a
    more appropriate companion for one's daughter than for oneself....
    
    I think the reason it's possible to keep these things secret, and
    to not do anything about them, is that when you've gone through
    it a certain number of times, you realize they aren't going to last.
    
    --bonnie 

    Um. Thank you, Mr. Eagles. This is not an aspect I had really thought
    about. 
    
    My initial reaction is that my reluctance to admit this kind of
    feeling is based mostly on my own fear of looking silly -- mothers
    of teenage daughters aren't generally thought of as sexually -- but
    you may be onto something here. 
    
    I'm going to have to think about this.
    
    --bonnie

Re:     telling SO about crush, and telling teenage daughter about crush

You're talking about different things (obviously).

Bonnie has to be concerned about how teenage daughter's male peer will
react to knowing he makes his friend's mom moist.  And how daughter
will react too.

Eagle has to be concerned about how SO will react to his crush.

One is concern over a teenager's reaction, the other over an adult's
reaction, and one is a SO (or a spouse) and other is a child and child's
friend.

In my marriage, we occasionally mention our crushes on others.

But I am reluctant, because all too often my wife seems to regard
my admission of having a crush as suggesting she (the wife) is not
good enough.

The truth in my life is that many women look wonderful to me.  They
probably always will.  It's probably God's way of telling me to have
kids and multiply.  (not that I'm too religious)

I feel fine about my wife admitting to crushes.  I hope she can become
more comfortable with mine.

But I'm also thinking about at work.

It would be fun to be able to mention to someone at work that "oh, what
do you think of so-and-so, I think she's really cute, I have a crush on
her" and have it kind of leak back to so-and-so.

You know, just like back in junior high.  It was kind of fun.

/Eric

    Nothing wrong with it, usually, Eagle.........it turns some SOs on as a 
    matter of fact........it's only wrong when it's done with intent
    to hurt the SO, as in preference of the other OVER the SO.
    
    As far as mothers of teenagers being nonsexual beings - if we portray
    that I think that it is to only to try and stife our teenagers own
    sexuality.  Who knows?  Your husband might possibly enjoy a rebirth
    of the silliness.  Men have been "appreciating" women openly for
    years.....why not us too?

    Men: you wouldn't find it threatening to find out that your SO pants
    and drools (mentally, anyway) whenever that good-looking *** MADE-UP
    EXAMPLE *** new college hire in the testing group drops by with a new
    bug to fix?  You wouldn't feel like she thought you were getting old or
    hadn't been satisfying her sexually or bored her or something?
    
    --bonnie

    p.s. My daughter sort of knows I'm a sexual being -- we drool over
    David Lee Roth and the Bon Jovi band together -- but that's not
    the same thing as a real person you both know.      

    
    Crushes are practically second nature to me.  It seems perfectly
    healthy to me, as long as you realize that it's not love.  At least
    not immediately.  It might develop into that, but don't bet the
    emotional farm on it.
                  
    Aw, go on, Bonnie, tell him.  I mean, it's not like you'd be looking
    to sink a few barbs by mentioning it.  Saying that the sight of
    someone, ah, revs your motors, probably won't be that big a blow.
    Of course, there's always the danger that your husband might come
    home some time dressed like David Lee Roth, but there's risk in
    everything...
    
    :-)
    
    DFW

    I got real brave and posted a picture of Dolph Lundgren dressed
    up (loosely speaking) in his costume from the He-Man movie -- it
    doesn't seem to have bothered him any. So I may work up to a real
    person any time now. (I mean one we both know.)
    
    --bonnie
    

RE: .24

I though infatuations and crushes were supposed to be temporary things that
you got over...?

Jim.

re: .39:

Remember Narcissus?????  That was an infatuation that he never
got over.

					Nigel

    
    
    	I've been to Narcissus and I got over it very quickly.. :-)
    
    	(note: Narcissus is an under-21 dance club in Kenmore Square
    	in Beantown)
    
    						mike