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1. Well, I believe that love exists. Or at the very least, our jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of what love is for us. It exists.

   It’s just that, love, does­n’t always equate to a per­fect rela­tion­ship. You can love some­one all you want, but it does­n’t mean it’s the solu­tion to all prob­lems. It does­n’t put food on the table and a roof over your head. It does­n’t cure sick­ness nor does it pre­vent it. It does­n’t even assure you of a hap­py end­ing.

   But it exists.

   We just for­get that love isn’t enough to keep a rela­tion­ship togeth­er. It takes some hard prac­ti­cal work and for me at least, a rea­son and a pur­pose.

   • I beleive you.

     Love is some­thing men came up with in order to “sweep” women off their feet, and well.… sleep with them. they don’t give if you are nice, or what­ev­er, they just want wom­an’s bod­ies. trust me, the real friends(in boys/men) are the ones who actu­al­ly do shit with their lives.. and don’t have any girls that are friends. in my opin­ion any­ways.

     • 100% with u. if love exsist­ed why would every­one i’ve EVER cared about let me down and push me away?

   • love is not real its just a fake word its been tosed around too much its a mirage its all fake love at first sight please thats a myth

   • my nob­bles

     Love to me is an imag­i­nary thing that has nev­er and will nev­er exist.It is just a word that does not apply any­where in the world.if not then some­one tell me why despite the abun­dant care i and the so call “love” i show to pple always end up a fias­co.?

   • I am just won­der­ing, but see­ing that love is unde­fined, then how does it exist? The answers are far too dif­fer­ent, and is always chang­ing. If it is real, then why has the world been filled with God-less sav­ages?

2. Dear “Thoughts”,

   I sus­pect your def­i­n­i­tion of love is full of mis­con­cep­tions (and not a lit­tle painful his­to­ry).

   Do you think
   Love =
   Always Romantic +
   Totally Unconditional +
   Lasts Forever +
   Exactly Mutual Feelings?

   Yes, that type of love is next to impos­si­ble. But it would be sil­ly of me to say it has nev­er hap­pened before, isn’t hap­pen­ing now, or will nev­er hap­pen in the future. Life has infi­nite pos­si­bil­i­ties.

   TRUE LOVE, as some­times depict­ed in the movies, does hap­pen, but very rarely. It can even be pro­found­ly more bliss­ful and sat­is­fy­ing than any movie could depict. I know because I’ve seen it first hand, in real life, with sev­er­al envi­ous cou­ples. Who gets to live it and who does­n’t? It is basi­cal­ly an act of ran­dom­ness, luck, fate (call it what you will). By why, if we need and want it so bad­ly, can only a few peo­ple get it, but most can­not? BECAUSE LIFE ISN’T FAIR!

   Is Love always roman­tic? No way. Most of life is mun­dane, unat­trac­tive, bor­ing and fraught with prob­lems.

   Is it always mutu­al? Of course not. But that does­n’t negate the love one per­son feels. His or her love does exist, all too painful­ly.

   Does Love last for­ev­er, and if not, was it real­ly love? That’s a trick­i­er ques­tion. We love what we know or think we know. That is the best we can do. However, if you con­sid­er that peo­ple learn and change over time, it is clear that love changes also. Maybe it lasts days, weeks, months, years, decades…in very rare cas­es, a life­time. But one thing I heard long ago has proven accu­rate for me: Love is nev­er stag­nate. It either grows stronger over time, or weak­ens over time. It nev­er stays exact­ly the same.

   Is Love uncon­di­tion­al? By def­i­n­i­tion, real love is self­less and uncon­di­tion­al. There are always prac­ti­cal con­sid­er­a­tions that deter­mine if two peo­ple can stay togeth­er. Whether two peo­ple can stay togeth­er is deter­mined by whether prac­ti­cal con­sid­er­a­tions out­weigh the love or not. If the love is stronger, the con­di­tions are less impor­tant. However, many peo­ple love anoth­er per­son deeply but can­not stay togeth­er with them, for one or more of a mil­lion rea­sons. When that hap­pens, it’s sad, but that’s life.

   For more insight into the real­i­ties of love, I rec­om­mend you con­sid­er the book “The Art of Love” by Eric Fromm. http://www.amazon.com/Art-Loving-Erich-Fromm/dp/0060915943

3. Hollywood’s a soci­ety that rewrites its own eth­nics and morals for their make-believe world. How you, or any­one, find the real mean­ing of love in Made of Honor, Shall We Dance, The Notebook, or Die Hard.

4. (I do hope that was­n’t Eric.)

   Love does exist. I know because I would have left the plan­et long ago had I not found some­one who I felt tru­ly under­stood me, and with­out whom my life would be very emp­ty.

   That being said, the rela­tion­ship I had in mind for us did not end up as planned. It end­ed pla­ton­i­cal­ly; but I can’t say I am any less rich for it hav­ing been so.

   My expe­ri­ence is that sim­ple, lush, roman­tic love and hav­ing an actu­al, sol­id, once in a life­time soul­mate are not always in the same pack­age. It would be nice if it were so, but peo­ple are con­stant­ly shift­ing and grow­ing and sex of course makes every­thing much more com­pli­cat­ed, even when you tru­ly love some­one.

   Here I could go with one of two rec­om­men­da­tions:

   A) Endure pain until all your sharp edges are worn down and you are com­fort­able with your­self so much that you’ll bump into actu­al love because some­one else rec­og­nizes and wants your warmth and secu­ri­ty; or

   B) I could quote Spaulding Grey (he was quot­ing at the time): “Happy People Don’t Make History.” Note how­ev­er that after he threw him­self off a fer­ry in win­ter to com­mit sui­cide, you might want to choose A).

5. Love is cer­tain­ly some­thing we define for our­selves. There are so many semen­tics involved in try­ing to explain it. For exam­ple, there’s a dis­tinc­tion made between being “in love” with some­one and “lov­ing” some­one. It’s obvi­ous from all your com­ments that we hold dif­fer­ent views of love, as unique as our views of the world as a whole.

   I’ve only recent­ly start­ed to real­ize that, for me, love is mutu­al. It’s a bond shared between two peo­ple. Because when it’s an unre­quit­ed love, it’s not the same. You don’t have the foun­da­tion of trust and under­stand­ing that lets it grow and evolve. Edrei, as you say in your fol­low-up entry, love is not enough, but it’s cer­tain­ly a require­ment in any rela­tion­ship if it’s expect­ed to work out in the long term.

   Hollywood ful­fils it’s pur­pose by enter­tain­ing fan­tasies of ide­al love. I have to laugh at how unre­al­is­tic it all is. Most men are por­trayed as child­ish, inse­cure, unat­tached peo­ple, and women are made out to be love-starved, will­ing to throw them­selves at a man who will sim­ply admit that he has feel­ings for them. There are many cre­ative lib­er­ties tak­en by the movies, and that’s exact­ly why we watch them.

   But I hold no illu­sions about love. I under­stand the con­di­tions, the (often sad) real­i­ties, and even with this prac­ti­cal mind­set, my most basic def­i­n­i­tion of love does not exist. Not for me.

   Story of my life.

   • I agree with Jeff in that there needs to be a dis­tinc­tion made between lov­ing some­one else (at least emo­tion­al feel­ings of such) and being in love with anoth­er per­son. The first is usu­al­ly sin­gu­lar and the last is mutu­al.

     I have loved every sin­gle woman I’ve dat­ed and even came close to becom­ing in love with a cou­ple of them. But as they say close is only good in horse­shoes and shot­guns.

     I’ve always been look­ing for that woman to become in love with. Thus far, in my case, it has­n’t hap­pened.

     I think that love at first sight is pos­si­ble but not prob­a­ble. I nev­er thought that I would ever fall in love at first sight with any woman.

     I’ve got­ta admit now that is exact­ly what has hap­pened for me. It’s near­ly an inde­scrib­able feel­ing one needs to expe­ri­ence to under­stand. It hap­pened 3 years ago. A more pre­cise descrip­tion is that I feel love for her. I need to change the “I” to a “we” in the state­ment for there to be a lov­ing rela­tion­ship so that “we” are in love not I am in love. Does this make sense?

     It took me near­ly 3 years to admit that I fell in love with her at the first sight. Of course there was no with at that time.

     I have yet to con­vince her to be “in” love with “me”, or rather she has yet to make that choice on her own with my help of course. Our rela­tion­ship is just now start­ing to mean some­thing to both of us. — stay tuned.

6. Since you cre­ate the def­i­n­i­tion that sets your­self apart from what you want, that must do some­thing grat­i­fy­ing for you. Sometimes you seem like you could be hap­pi­ly Catholic or even Baptist in a love of penance.

   • That’s fun­ny, I was raised Catholic, although I’ve com­plete­ly giv­en up the reli­gion now. I’ve since con­vert­ed to writ­ing. :)

     • ha! I love that turn of word.

7. What’s your most basic def­i­n­i­tion of love that does not exist?

   • I would have to say that my def­i­n­i­tion involves mutu­al feel­ings, on a rel­a­tive­ly even lev­el. Not that love is always even and fair (in my expe­ri­ence, rela­tion­ships can be one-sided). To me, love is where you can give your­self up whol­ly because you know that the oth­er per­son has as well, and just as much.

     • You’ll have to excuse the Spiderman ref­er­ence, but this just came to mind, “With great love comes great respon­si­bil­i­ty.” I think to a cer­tain degree it entails that you open your­self up to be tak­en advan­tage of, and trust that it won’t hap­pen.

     • I com­plete­ly agree. Actually, I was about to write some­thing about my pre­vi­ous bag­gage and trust issues in the last com­ment, but felt that I digressed too much.

8. I’m sor­ry to add yet anoth­er adden­dum to your post, but I found this so inspir­ing. I guess for some, it does exist. Although this is about can­cer, it is about love. This fel­low’s blog is anoth­er I enjoy read­ing a lot.

   http://metrodad.typepad.com/index/2008/08/rest-in-peace.html

   • Another Asian blog­ger, I see. You must have the yel­low fever. :D

     • Korean con­nec­tion!.

9. You guys real­ly make some insight­ful and inspir­ing com­ments.

   • I com­plete­ly agree with you. This has become one of the best com­ment threads on the site.

10. True love exists, says sci­ence! report­ed by Foxnews even..

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,475905,00.html

    • We are oth­er 9 cou­ples.

11. Thank good­ness it was orig­i­nal­ly from the London Times…

12. This post made me think deep.

    • You don’t appear to be the only one.

13. I don’t think love exisits. I think peo­ple are scared to live on their own and so they need to have a rela­tion­ship to feel val­i­dat­ed. I also blame instincts to need to be social. I think it is per­fect­ly healthy to be alone if that’s what you real­ly want. Some peo­ple, like myself, don’t enjoy the feel­ing of being tied and restrict­ed. It’s a com­plete pain in the long run that, in the end, might as well not hap­pen. The world is filled with divorce now of days and that is a clear sign that love does not exist as far as lov­ing a non-rel­a­tive rela­tion­ship goes.

    Seriously, think about it. You “fall in love” with some­one and you get mar­ried (and most like­ly over-look­ing all the skele­tons in their clos­et or stuff­ing yours into a suit­case labeled “from mom”). Now you’re stuck and can’t just leave when you want to with­out a mass amount of mon­ey spent, argu­ment, and, in some cas­es, some­thing extreme­ly ille­gal. But if you decide to stay, you have kids. That means you have more peo­ple to sup­port and you get attact­ed to them. Well what if your spouse decides they hate your guts? Then comes the divorce and then the kids being hurt in the cus­tody bat­tle and arrange­ment. Then you have to start all over but nev­er com­plete­ly the way you were because a piece of you is bro­ken because you decid­ed to be stu­pid and involve your­self with some­thing triv­ial.

    It all ends in heart-break, my friends. Romantic/Passionate love and rela­tion­ships are worth­less. The only peo­ple worth lov­ing is your fam­i­ly. Save your­self the grief.

    • Hey,

      My father gave me up for adop­tion and led his life with­out his chil­dren his grand­chil­dren or great grand­chil­dren. No fam­i­ly.
      The man I thought I loved was 6 years old­er than me left to go to Africa and mar­ried a 3rd world woman who was 32 years younger.
      No there is no such thing as love. We are all worm food when we die.

14. i came to put an end to the ques­tion of the mil­lion dollars…and the answer is no.love,or what you call love is not real.the love for oth­ers is not real,the love for your fam­i­ly is not real.love is just a lie that mom­my and dad­dy told you all because they were raised to believe in it.your par­ents do not real­ly love you,think about it,but think far beyond your beliefs,use com­mon sense..your father and moth­er only care about you and wor­ry about you because they use you to become more pop­u­lar before oth­er parents.why do you think they like to brag about your accom­plish­ments to others.reason num­ber 2,they were forced to raise you,because if they didnt,they would spend some time behind bars for child abuse…they count the sec­onds until you become old enough and you get out of the house and become your own problem,you can ask them,and they will lie,to themselves…they do these things subconsiously.When you like someone,you dont fall in love,you like the per­son because you want to get your freak on with her or him.you tell them´´i love you´´but that is just anoth­er expres­sion for lets do R rat­ed stuff.love is not an emo­tion its just a lie the human­i­ty is forced to believe…but i have awakened,im not blind­ed by those lies anymore.to put it simple,what you call love is just the ani­mal need of a human to find a mate and reproduce,there are no mag­ic or uni­corns involved.i could go on with this for hours,but i got bet­ter things to do.and to you all going´´what an emo´´let me tell you one thing,im not one of those depres­sive pathet­ic excus­es of human beigns that like to feel pain.ill rather be the one inflict­ing the pain.so my last words to you are..keep lying to yourselves,i dont care.im out­ta that dilema…love is anoth­er leg­end that was killed by me.

    • …and here I thought no human could actu­al­ly open there eyes and see the harsh world that we humans live in… And world lies and mon­keys who wish for noth­ing more then sex. Going as far as rid them­selves of all morals… and for what? To get there rocks off… I rather be dead… Humans are such a dis­grace…

15. I am mar­ried for 18 years with 2 young kids. I don’t believe in love in this time and age or maybe in humans. If love is absolute under­stand, trust, and sacraf­ic and (you fill in the blank), then we can’t acheive that, espe­cial­ly here and now. If love is sacraf­ic, I don’t like to do it for any­one that much and I rarely meet peo­ple that do. If love is under­stand­ing, then I would do bet­ter to under­stand oth­ers more, not judge so much and then I maybe could believe in love? If love is trust, then maybe we’ll all have to keep our word more, because not keep­ing our word is a dying trait. I believe that we real­ly enjoy peo­ple’s com­pa­ny and we NEED peo­ple and most peo­ple equate need with love. The more depen­dent you are, the more you “love”. I think there are a lot of emo­tions that get involved with us humans, like jeal­ousy, envy, hate…, which keeps us from acheiv­ing love. I seem to like my hus­band on a scale; some days I don’t know why I mar­ried him, oth­er days I am so glad he’s in my life and under­stands me. He let’s me be me, and that’s when I am hap­py with him. When he’s crit­i­cal and point­ing out things, that is when I don’t like him so much. He says he loves me no mat­ter what I do. Bullshit, if I go cheat on him, will he still love me? If I say, here, you take the kids in the divorce instead of fight­ing for cus­tody, is he real­ly going to respect me?? When I let him or the fam­i­ly down there is ten­sion in our mar­riage; when I don’t do what I say I am going to do. And visa ver­sa. So, I think for peo­ple to be hap­py is to be dici­plined and to keep their word. When you don’t, you let peo­ple down and cre­ate hurt. That hurt pass­es on to the next per­son and then the next per­son. We, as a soci­ety, over the years have slow­ly let our dis­ci­pline and “word” slip with each oth­er. It’s self­ish. I’m not a reli­gious nut, I’m not reli­gious at all, but the more all of us are self­ish, the more bar­bar­ic our soci­ety will be and the fur­ther we will be from any­thing called love.