True Love: A definition?

Ugh. It is answers like this that make me very scared for the future. It seems so overly rehearsed and brainwashed that it hurts to look at. Very Disney and naive. Then, I found this other definition. If it is indeed an accurate description of true love (not True Love), then I certainly believe in it. I don't want a threesome with God, thankyouverymuch.

I especially enjoy the points about distance, spending time with others, and seeing flaws but still loving them. Eyal, you may leave chunks of toothpaste in the sink, but I love you anyway. In any one else, it would probably annoy me. Incidentally, this second definition came from the distinctly uncool site of College Sex & Love. I was expecting to find something truly inane and stupid, but was pleasantly suprised. It also offered a comparison to infatuation.

How do you define true love, and do you believe in it?

10:19 - 1.10.2007 - post comment

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Yes, I believe in true love, but I'm not so sure I agree with being selfless, because if it was truly true love, the other wouldn't want you to diminish yourself in any way, because that would smack of control issues.Being willing to be selfless and being required to be selfless are two different things.

treasa - 06:57 - 2.10.2007

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True love or not, I would still care if toothpaste was stuck in the sink, or if he leaves the lid up on the toilet. LOL

I believe in true love, because what kind of love isn't true.. :)

Chica - 07:24 - 2.10.2007

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I agree with you, Treasa. That was the one point in the definition I found a little fuzzy. But I have my own big theories on selfishness anyway, which shortened goes thus: Everyone is selfish to a degree, especially those who are convinced they are not. (They flaunt their selflessness as a sort of means of bringing themselves a selfish pleasure from knowing that they are 'better than most'.) And then you have the type of people, like my old housemate, who really wasn't selfish enough and who didn't do it just to be selfless, but because she had grown up with all sorts of people stepping on her and using her for their own purposes. Poor girl really needed to learn to take care of herself and her own interests instead of those of all the others or she would find herself an early grave.

Chica - it's a little weird, I have been annoyed at everyone else before him for those purposes, but for some reason it is acceptable coming from him. I find myself slightly scared because of this. It doesn't mean that I don't wish that he wouldn't do it, but it does mean that I can live with it anyway.

annmi - 07:53 - 2.10.2007

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Selfishness...

The way you discribe selfisness partly reminds me of some guy I saw on tv one's. Who claimed people like mother teresa (probably spelled incorrrectly) are selfish because they aparantly expect people to live like them and that they only do it because it makes them feel good about themselves. Basicly this guy was just trying to talk his own selfishness right...the peek of being Selfish I would say....

Btw I am not saying you are like this guy. Just your definition of being selfish is partly the same.

The way you look at the matter it seems that all actions you do which are in your own benifit are selfish actions.

I see it a little differantly. I see being selfish as not considering other people around and not caring about it.

Sure we all consider our own welbeing when we do something. When we help someone it makes us feel good about ourselves. People who think they are better then others because of it as you mentioned above I would see as selfrightious and perhaps also being cocky. Drawn into the extreme I guess it could become selfish.

But you already said it yourself you need to consider your own needs if you want to be able to survive in this world. Is that being selfish? Only when you delibratly don't consider other people while you busy surviving I believe.

It can be tricky at times I guess..considering your own needs and others...that's is why I think sharring and making compromises is the way to go if you want to live peacefully together. As that way you conisder your own needs and from the people around you...not just your own...that would be...selfish!

Anyway I think in live and in a relationship you should theath each other as equals. And not think you better then another....but also not less.

ps.

I think i could wrote this all down a lot better...but I never was a great writer and i have limited time at the moment so I leave it as it is....hope I was able to get through what I mean right.

Alex aka Lexius - 11:22 - 3.10.2007

Alex

Yes, I understand you. I don't agree fully however. :)

Is not the desire to make an impact on the world a selfish one? You know that YOU have done it and that the world is a better place and that you can now feel a little better about it? Of course, a lot remains to be done, but at least you made a good start and can feel good about that.

Everyone is selfish - it's part of the self-preservation mechanism. There is no way to view the world except from your own point of view.. at least not as a starting point. I can sympathize with yours, or a worm's, or many other things as long as there is something similar in it to my own.

You seem to prescribe to the more traditional definition of selfishness - that only deeds done without thinking of others are selfish, but I believe all deeds done with yourself in mind (even if you think of others too) are selfish ones. I also believe in degrees of selfishness.

But yes, I FULLY agree with you on one point - in a relationship, both should be treated as equals. Compromise, compromise, compromise...

annmi - 09:19 - 3.10.2007

More selfish discusion.

Well...sure. People always need some kind of motivation to do something. There always must be something benificial in it for them how small it might be.

If we were completly selfless as you call it we would be drone's without a will. We would be just servants for others without any wishes for ourselves.

We would be mindless drone's.

People wouldn't advance and would get stuck in the stone age probably.


For me personally tho I associate selfisness with people who just do whatever the hell they want. People who don't even try to place themselves in someone elses shoes.

And I agree you can only use your own point of vieuw as starting point...it's the only refrance we have....we can't read other people's mind. But isn't that the reason why we interact with people? Isn't that how we able to look past just our own point of vieuw?

I am doing it right now. I try to look from your point of vieuw. Your interpertation of selfisness. Explaining my point of vieuw as you do yours. Asking each other quistions. As you probably are trying to look from my point of vieuw as well doing the same.

And doesn't it makes us selfless of wanting to know how the worm feels or wanting to know how you feel? I mean there isn't much in it for us to do that. Perhaps to pass time, or because you want to understand someone. So you can help him/her. So...this person will like you as you like him/her. Which is the benifial point of it for us...which by your definition makes it selfish.

I can understand your definition of selfish and the differant degree's in it. I guess the last one I mentioned you would define as a harmless form?

Alex aka Lexius - 11:04 - 3.10.2007

Point of view

When you look at the squished worm on the sidewalk and cringe, thinking "I wouldn't like that to happen to me," it's a sort of empathy, yes. But in the end, you're thinking again of the ME side. You think "Poor worm" but at the same time a side of you is relieved that it wasn't you even if you are unlikely to get stepped on any time soon. Again, I'd say this is a selfish reaction, not a selfless one. But yes, I agree with the rest.

annmi - 11:31 - 4.10.2007

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I find the definition you found very good indeed. I will adopt it from on.

I can agree on the selfishness part. You have to maintain at least some dosage of selfishness because total selflessness can be annoying as hell. It actually happened in one of my relationships (I was the sefless one) and I can't blame the girl for dumping me.

bitzky - 05:25 - 6.10.2007