What is true love?

[GabbyJ]

I'm writing an article on true love and it occurs to me that I'm not really sure what specific actions constitute "true love". So far this is what I've got. If you can add to the list, please do so a.s.a.p. Thanks.

 

-Instead of feeling jealous or irritated, you show total understanding in potentially explosive situations.

 

-You practive random acts of kindness with no thought of gaining something for yourself.

[Tony T]

I really don't want to get into such a complex subject right now, but I do want to tell you you're way off on what you have so far.

 

1. "-Instead of feeling jealous or irritated, you show total understanding in potentially explosive situations."

 

You imply that people who are in true love should roll over, play dead, and not respond in explosive situations. This is insane. There are proper and healthy ways to respond to incidents or to resolve disputes. But being in true love by no means exempts one from some bits of jealousy and a greater measure of irritation at times.

 

Yes, I do believe there should be total understanding but a sane person understands that even the person they love more than life itself is human and can screw up. Show understanding in potentially explosive situations but also be assertive and tolerate no discourtesy, disrespect, or lack of consideration during those times.

 

There can be no true love without passion and passion calls for emotions far beyond the confines of "total understanding." Of course, there are some things that require no more than total understanding...but not many.

 

2. "-You practive random acts of kindness with no thought of gaining something for yourself."

 

The very nature of love absolutely requires that we get something in return. We love another person because of the way that person makes us feel when we are around them or when we are thinking of them.

 

Random acts of kindness are great but if our beloved takes those for granted and doesn't make us feel good for having performed them, I say stop right there.

 

Any way you slice it, true love has requirements, stipulations, fine print, etc. There is no such thing as unconditional true romantic love. Unconditional love is limited to the love a parent has for a child, or the love we have for our God or whatever.

 

But the romantic love we feel for a member of the opposite sex has as its main requirement the feelings we must get to keep us in that place. When that feeling goes, the whole thing goes down the toilet. So we have to, at the very least, gain those feelings or we aren't going to care about the random acts of kindness.

 

This is basic psychology...positive reinforcement. The seal does the trick and gets some fish. We do nice things for our beloved and our beloved continues to help us feel good about the relationship. Hopefully the relationship is reasonably mutual. It just has to be that way. People who are in love with someone who starts to make them feel inadequate or who abuses them, etc. are not in a love situation, no matter how much they may think they are...they are codependent and need psychotherapy.

 

Best of luck with your paper. Philosophers and scholars have tackled this subject for thousands of years with marginal success. You may want to write you article on another subject.