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Can't stop thinking about love

5K views 59 replies 23 participants last post by  RubyTuesday 
#1 ·
Can't stop thinking about love.

I often find myself daydreaming about love, thinking of love, and listening to love songs.

Is this a common phenomenon among lonely, single people with SA or is it just me?
 
#3 ·
I am a hopeless romantic and I hate it.
 
#4 ·
But love is just so attractive and all the popular people are doing it. It's the in thing nowadays. So wonderful and pretty and makes the world go round and brings peace to all...

*sarcasm for those slow to realize*

Find some music that isn't about love. Hard yes, but not impossible.

Oh yeah, people often want they don't have. Just wanted to add that.
 
#5 ·
Yeah. I often find that myself and other depressed people have these thoughts like "If I only had [something] then I would be happy". Very often it is the idea that if we had a significant other that we would be "happy". Unfortunately, this is almost always a simplification and once we have "love", we will be stressed and worried about keeping it, trying to tell if it's real, keeping things interesting, wondering if they feel the same way, if they are being faithful, etc.

Doesn't keep me from thinking about relationships and love though.
 
#6 ·
LonelyEnigma said:
Can't stop thinking about love.

I often find myself daydreaming about love, thinking of love, and listening to love songs.

Is this a common phenomenon among lonely, single people with SA or is it just me?
Stop listening to love songs and sad music

theyre like drugs: they make you feel better for a short while when you're listening to the music all mellowed out but they **** up your mind and give you long-term depression.
 
#7 ·
Love is bull in many ways. Not that it isn't a real feeling but it produces fairy tale false beliefs in your mind. The chemicals involved probably evolved because it produced stable offspring in tight families. Don't know if thinking about what love really is would help you or not.

I tried and failed to find it just now but try looking for Penn & Teller's Bull---- series, they have one on love.
 
#8 ·
What is love?
Where does it come from?
What arises from real love?
What is love not?

Maybe then everyone can talk about it together. Maybe no one here knows what it is. Everyone has their own definition, their own subjective experience of what they think it is.

Anyone have any answers?

Aron
 
#9 ·
Yeah, most of these guys don't really get the whole romance thing. :hide
 
#11 ·
Re: re: Can't stop thinking about love

Aron James said:
What is love?
Where does it come from?
What arises from real love?
What is love not?

Maybe then everyone can talk about it together. Maybe no one here knows what it is. Everyone has their own definition, their own subjective experience of what they think it is.

Anyone have any answers?

Aron
I'll take a stab at some of these questions..........

What is love?
Love is unconditional compassion and empathy toward another/others.

Where does it come from?
I'm not sure. Perhaps the language of the question confuses me.

What arises from real love?
If someone experiences real love, they take actions that are beneficial toward their loved ones and cultivate relationships built on unconditional respect, admiration, and/or romance/emotional unity.

What is love not?
Jealousy, dependence, lust, neediness, and selfishness.
 
#12 ·
Re: re: Can't stop thinking about love

Aron James said:
What is love?
Where does it come from?
What arises from real love?
What is love not?

Maybe then everyone can talk about it together.
I think we know what we're talking about when we say 'love'. If you're not sure then check the first few lines of a dictionary definition of love - it's unlikely the original poster and the rest of us would deviate from those without saying so. ...Or I suspect you mean you want everyone to come to a buddhist/spiritualist/solipsistic idea of love, "then everyone can talk about it together"? Well, feel free to suggest something yourself.

Otherwise I think we can already talk about it together without your questions.
 
#13 ·
I think the questions are reasonable to ask because not everyone implies the dictionary definition of a word when a word is used. Furthermore, dictionaries are not authorities on the definitions of words (despite "common" opinion). Dictionaries simply attempt to reflect what is most typically meant, on average, AT a given moment in time. Over time, definitions change, and not due to dictionaries. Dictionaries are the followers, not the leaders.

With that being said, it's important with a word as complex and mysterious as "love" for people to elaborate more specifically by what they mean so that we can be sure we're talking about the same thing. It's not as simple as using the word "sun" for instance.
 
#14 ·
ardrum said:
I think the questions are reasonable to ask because not everyone implies the dictionary definition of a word when a word is used. Furthermore, dictionaries are not authorities on the definitions of words (despite "common" opinion). Dictionaries simply attempt to reflect what is most typically meant, on average, AT a given moment in time. Over time, definitions change, and not due to dictionaries. Dictionaries are the followers, not the leaders.
I was not suggesting that dictionaries are prescriptive. I was suggesting that if Aron did not know what the original posters meant by 'love' - as it seems pretty obvious to me - then the dictionary is a useful tool. The most popular usages will be found at the top.

With that being said, it's important with a word as complex and mysterious as "love" for people to elaborate more specifically by what they mean so that we can be sure we're talking about the same thing. It's not as simple as using the word "sun" for instance.
In the case of the original posts I think it's very nearly as simple as using the word "sun".
 
#15 ·
Hmm... All I see from the original posters are comments about how they are thinking about "love" and how they want "love". This doesn't provide a definition of what is meant by the word though. I fail to see how something can be obvious when this is the only content of the posts?

I'd say overanalyzer went into more depth by explaining how people with SA worry about "keeping" love, as though it is something to be possessed. This gives one detail of one understanding of what love is. It surely isn't an exhaustive list though, so it could help if we thought more about what love is (after all, many things can be kept that we don't call love).

You added that love is something that produces "fairy tale false beliefs" in your mind. That is what you think love produces (I'd like to hear you elaborate as well), but it doesn't say what love is.

By the way, don't think I'm being argumentative. I'm just trying to raise the level of the discussion to something more substantial/interesting than "I wish I was loved" and "Love is B-S". Not much can be learned through these statements.
 
#17 ·
Love is but a series of symbols created by society to reflect a thought that most closely represent the thoughts of the majority. Distinct individuals are the ones who give this word true meaning. The definition of love is so complex and subjective that many great scholars/philosophers/authors have written very long essays or even books one the subject. The range of thoughts range from psychological delusions to some form or transcendental, spiritual connection people have with God's beings though God's benevolence for mankind.

My subjective/expanded definition of love
Love is greatest expression of concern, compassion, and benevolence one can feel for another. Love is the highest, most pure form of happiness. Love is the highest form of attraction. Love is a feeling that cannot be explained to those who don't believe in it. Love is a feeling that transcends objectification, logic, empirical thought, and rational. Trying to explain love to one who does not believe in love is like trying to explain color to a congenital blind man. One can give analogies and use word to try to explain, but everything one does falls short of the true meaning. In some ways believing in love is like believing in God: It requires faith.
 
#20 ·
Ill tell you what love is..
[L] is for the way you look at me,
[O] is for the only one I see,
[V] is very, very extraordinary
[E] is even more than anyone that you adore.
:mushy
 
#21 ·
:heart :heart :heart :heart :heart


I just want you to be happy


:heart :heart :heart :heart :heart
 
#22 ·
Don't hate me.

η αγαπη μακροθυμει χρηστευεται η αγαπη ου ζηλοι ου περπερευεται ου φυσιουται. ουκ ασχημονει ου ζητει τα εαυτης ου παροξυνεται ου λογιζεται το κακον. ου χαιρει επι τη αδικια συγχαιρει δε τη αληθεια. παντα στεγει παντα πιστευει παντα ελπιζει παντα υπομενει.

Love is pateint; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Cor 13:4-7)
 
#23 ·
It's a feeling. All feelings are 'hard to describe', or 'hard to define'. We still know what's meant by the terms.

People wouldn't spend so long contemplating hate or envy feelings. Love's a chemically-based feeling in the brain just like they all are, albeit a profound-feeling one. I see no reason for the reverence it gets.
 
#24 ·
In my opinion, that's where people get it wrong and tear apart their families. It shouldn't be a feeling. It should be unconditional, something you work at, something you develop. It reminds me of The Wedding Planner when Mary's father tells her that his marriage to her deceased mother was arranged, to the extent that he first met her on the day they were married. He explains that while he eventually grew to love his wife, he first came to appreciate her as she cared for him through illness and hard times. Later he grew to respect her and following that he liked her. Over time, like grew into love.

Love is NOT:

"I hardly even know you. I don't know your father's name, if you ever wore braces, or glasses or contacts. I don't know how you came to be a wedding planner but I know the curves of your face. I know every fleck of gold in your eye and I know that that night in the park was the best night of my life."
 
#25 ·
Re: re: Can't stop thinking about love

Recluser said:
It's a feeling. All feelings are 'hard to describe', or 'hard to define'. We still know what's meant by the terms.

People wouldn't spend so long contemplating hate or envy feelings. Love's a chemically-based feeling in the brain just like they all are, albeit a profound-feeling one. I see no reason for the reverence it gets.
I think we're talking about the experience of love. One could look at chemicals and say, "That's love," but it doesn't tell us much about the experience of what it is like to love or be loved.

Don't get me wrong though... I'm not denying chemical correlations with reported experiences of love. I'm just commenting that when someone refers to an emotion or feeling, they will usually be referring to the subjective experience, not simply chemicals alone.
 
#26 ·
I obsess about love a lot I remember ever since being 3 or 4 yrs old but I have love shynesss which is a type of social anxiety of the opposite sex.
 
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