Falling in love at first sight

[chaz wyman]

The phenomenon of LaFS, is a thing noted in the breach and susceptible to the problem of selective bias.

As a young man I often met a young lady who, had things worked out, provoked in me such a passionate reaction that felt much like love in the form of a lustful desire, that such a feeling could have been called LaFS.

The woman I finally settled with I had also had the same immediate reaction on meeting her - on THAT occasion one might willingly look back, with hindsight, and say it was LaFS - after all, I did stay with her for the next 12 years.

But to say that there is such a thing as LaFS begs the question why did not all the others conform to the phenomenon - and what is love anyway?

[reasonemotion]

Lynn, I dont know who was more disappointed, You, The Voice of Time or myself

[The Voice of Time]

Lynn, I dont know who was more disappointed, You, The Voice of Time or myself

I am actually a bit disappointed, but my interests run also into the question of what love "is".

I once asked myself that question and the fair reason I came up with was that love is appreciation. However, this thing felt too simple and void of emotion, and why not just call it "appreciation" then? So, I asked myself once more, and the better question is that as a "cause" of appreciation you desire to uphold something/somebody, preserve them perhaps (in a sense at least, not as "staying young forever", at least not necessarily, but as in preserving whatever it is that you appreciate and whatever it is that you appreciate belongs to the entity called "x-girl/boy").

People hate and love different aspects of the same person. Genuine love, as far as I'm concerned, is the capabilities of people to have a positive view of each other, don't think that a person, for instance, should stay young forever because it's unreasonable, but enjoy their youth while you can, and then enjoy their maturity, and then enjoy that you are both like bits of rubber smashed with hammers and applied unto human flesh... or something along that way. Anyways, the positive view helps you change as reality changes, and a mutual positive view of each other is needed all at the beginning to make the entire process !work!.

If I were to think: oh her hair is so short it should be longer! Instead of thinking: aaah, her hair is so smooth and good-smelling!

You see the difference? A positive view along the way keeps the way still there. As long as reality stays reasonable by giving you reasons (reasons for you of course as nobody can tell you but give you hints of what you should like/appreciate), to love her or him, you just have to see those things.

[duszek]

I love people in whose company I feel so good that I wish to keep it (with interruptions of course) for ever.
So for me love is mutually desired companionship.

[chaz wyman]

I love people in whose company I feel so good that I wish to keep it (with interruptions of course) for ever.
So for me love is mutually desired companionship.

Mutuality implies reciprocity. If there is not commensurate desire from the object of love, though, that does not mean that love does not exist from you to the recipient.

[The Voice of Time]

I love people in whose company I feel so good that I wish to keep it (with interruptions of course) for ever.
So for me love is mutually desired companionship.

If we are going to be subjective here then the list'll go on forever... for me, for this, for that isn't useless, just that philosophically it's depressingly impossible to encapsulate into something commonly useful to say about love.

I could say that for me love is when my girl is on down on all four giving me head and enjoying worshipping my genitals. It's equally valid, but not much useful as a common means of definition (and in this case for most girls quite insulting). Just an example btw. In truth I'm more kind-of the person, like duszek, focusing on companionship, and for me more about the presence of the person itself, as if the very presence of the person had value beyond its substance qualities (though its substance qualities, including philosophy and mind, helps in that they give association that come to life when you feel their presence, even when your're not looking at a girl the knowing that she is in the kitchen might help cheering you up like remembering what a nice dinner you had yesterday, though personally I like better holding around the girl and tightness of presence than seeing her from afar).

[chaz wyman]

I love people in whose company I feel so good that I wish to keep it (with interruptions of course) for ever.
So for me love is mutually desired companionship.

If we are going to be subjective here then the list'll go on forever... for me, for this, for that isn't useless, just that philosophically it's depressingly impossible to encapsulate into something commonly useful to say about love.

I could say that for me love is when my girl is on down on all four giving me head and enjoying worshipping my genitals. It's equally valid, but not much useful as a common means of definition (and in this case for most girls quite insulting). Just an example btw. In truth I'm more kind-of the person, like duszek, focusing on companionship, and for me more about the presence of the person itself, as if the very presence of the person had value beyond its substance qualities (though its substance qualities, including philosophy and mind, helps in that they give association that come to life when you feel their presence, even when your're not looking at a girl the knowing that she is in the kitchen might help cheering you up like remembering what a nice dinner you had yesterday, though personally I like better holding around the girl and tightness of presence than seeing her from afar).

This is one of the best examples of where language is inadequate. Love is an approximation for a range of feelings, overlain with a range of needs, overlaid by a range of social meanings an definitions. At the most fundamental love is the feeling a bitch gets when it licks the gore of its new born pup; the joy felt by a bull when it finally penetrates a cow; its the excitement felt by the the lost lamb when it finds the herd. We share those deepest feelings, but there is not much to help our own understanding, as things start to get more complicated. But there is no doubt that the basis of love is that we are animals who feel.

[Lynn]

Lynn, I dont know who was more disappointed, You, The Voice of Time or myself

I am actually a bit disappointed, but my interests run also into the question of what love "is".

Sorry. Your insight was a 'discovery' moment that I had not admitted to myself before. My usual experience is admiration or appreciation growing from a friendship over time, perhaps into love - be it face to face or a virtual scenario. Words have their own potency for me, in addition to the physical aspects .

An old friend from school recently told me that she believes that men and women can remain friends and where physical desire creeps in, it is more likely to be more curiosity than desire. I was surprised by this because she told me many years before that we were different from each other, in that men wanted to ravish her (and why not, she was and still is a very sexy woman) but wanted to cherish and protect me, as I was a sensual creature. I always viewed this as her way to protect the feelings of her geeky girl friend who never got the 'hunky' guys .

The 'geeky guys'* became my friends, occasionally lovers - most of whom I still admire and hold feelings of love for them as friends in a locked compartment in my heart. As a result of engaging in social networking, there has been contact with some friends and it is as if the passage of time never parted us and we have resumed our friendships. The dynamics and conversations have changed e.g. which school is best for the children but the essence of the person had not and that surprised and delighted me.

Friends love you and lovers should always be friends** - that is my aim .

* I use this as a term of endearment, not insult.
**Yes, I have deliberately omitted the bad times.

[The Voice of Time]

Lynn, I dont know who was more disappointed, You, The Voice of Time or myself

ooops, thought I read that she was dissappointed about Chaz for what he said (what love is and why it not always work). Lol, that speech was not directed at you Lynn.

[chaz wyman]

Lynn, I dont know who was more disappointed, You, The Voice of Time or myself

ooops, thought I read that she was dissappointed about Chaz for what he said (what love is and why it not always work). Lol, that speech was not directed at you Lynn.

I'm, not sure whether or not I articulated my position clearly enough. i was trying to hint at the complexity of a range of feelings and and a wide range of emotional spectra that one word "love" simply cannot encompass. in a very real sense there is no such thing as 'love". "Love" is a poor sign that is attached to so many things. At its deepest it is a oneness with another (usually living, though not necessarily) that can be strong enough to overcome a sense of self preservation; there are few parents that would not risk their own lives for their child.

[Lynn]

The Guardian has a recent article on how smell can help you find Mr or Ms Right or bond mother and child. It does not mention fathers but perhaps this oversight is being or has been investigated by other research. I think it would be remiss of me to suggest that only mothers, be they human or animal, would move heaven and earth to save their child.
- "Love is in the air: the best way to sniff out your perfect partner
The way we smell is one of the most revealing indicators of who we really are, according to The Science of Love"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... NTCMP=SRCH

[The Voice of Time]

I'm, not sure whether or not I articulated my position clearly enough. i was trying to hint at the complexity of a range of feelings and and a wide range of emotional spectra that one word "love" simply cannot encompass. in a very real sense there is no such thing as 'love". "Love" is a poor sign that is attached to so many things. At its deepest it is a oneness with another (usually living, though not necessarily) that can be strong enough to overcome a sense of self preservation; there are few parents that would not risk their own lives for their child.

yeah, though I guessed you meant something along those lines you said as if you couldn't in fact find your own words for what love is, and why it not always worked out. That was the small disappointment I only mentioned because I thought somebody else also mentioned it.

Anyways. Yeah, highly abused and/or disrespected word.

[The Voice of Time]

The Guardian has a recent article on how smell can help you find Mr or Ms Right or bond mother and child. It does not mention fathers but perhaps this oversight is being or has been investigated by other research. I think it would be remiss of me to suggest that only mothers, be they human or animal, would move heaven and earth to save their child.
- "Love is in the air: the best way to sniff out your perfect partner
The way we smell is one of the most revealing indicators of who we really are, according to The Science of Love"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... NTCMP=SRCH

Learned about that some time ago, through a Stanford free online course.

Really funny, turns out people have the greatest chance for thinking their third cousins smell good, the neurobiologist who spoke recommended based on evidence that we should have kids with our third cousins ^^

[chaz wyman]

The Guardian has a recent article on how smell can help you find Mr or Ms Right or bond mother and child. It does not mention fathers but perhaps this oversight is being or has been investigated by other research. I think it would be remiss of me to suggest that only mothers, be they human or animal, would move heaven and earth to save their child.
- "Love is in the air: the best way to sniff out your perfect partner
The way we smell is one of the most revealing indicators of who we really are, according to The Science of Love"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... NTCMP=SRCH

Learned about that some time ago, through a Stanford free online course.

Really funny, turns out people have the greatest chance for thinking their third cousins smell good, the neurobiologist who spoke recommended based on evidence that we should have kids with our third cousins ^^

The problems with incest are staggeringly over exaggerated.
Anthropologically the prohibition on incest is to do with exogamy, and nothing to do with genetic abnormalities.
99%+ of brother sister couplings produce sound progeny. Problems, where present, can emerge if this is done too much. But the actual mating of close relatives does not of itself introduce faulty genes.

[reasonemotion]

the only way to be happy is to love and until you do your life will flash by