[crazychu]

just kidding. Okay for the younger population of CGR. What is love? I know what love is, Christ's perfect example, family love, and a general description of romantic love (from what i know from past relationships, movies, and love songs).

this one's about romantic love.

For young people, older than JR high i must say, how do you know when you are truely "in-love" with someone? of course you may THINK you love that person. you may LOVE the way this person is, how she looks, the way she does things, her personality. But often times the love we see (the younger people see) in married couples or relationships is this unconditional love for their partner. A love that endures physical appearance, habbits, and even a change in personality (maturity, PMS, etc (jk about the pms)). Notice how I made the "conditions" stand out in different contexes.

Okay so how do you know when a boy loves a girl?

I think i might be in love with this girl. of course it goes beyond physical appearance (although she is beautiful), personality (sweetest thing), habbits (she has major OCD haha), and other things. Although we've had conflicts about certain things, we've always endured past it. we've gone through "hard times" and whatnot.

How do we make sure that our "love" for someone isn't the same "love" as today's popular media's love? or "worldly" love? How do we make sure that our attractions are authentic, and not just temporary or shallow? I know an answer, Time, they say time is the sole evidence of commitment. It's true right? but what if someone just has a lot of patience and tolerance towards someone? Is the essence of love then time/commitment? the ol' "show me you love me by waiting". (which i am going through right now! no bitterness or anything expressed in this post, i'm just really curious)

[cess4jesus]

let me just say this. one might feel and think he is in love, but the right thing at the wrong time is still a wrong thing... it has something to do with timing!

[bobthecockroach]

Love, as far as I can tell, is two things:

1. A commitment to someone else's best interest. This would be the type of love talked about in 1 Corinthians.
2. A desire for intimacy. This would be what is sometimes called a crush among kids/teens. It would also be, I think, what is usually meant when someone says they "like" someone. Note that by "intimacy" I don't mean sex, though it can be sex. I mean closeness of any kind. I mean getting to know someone better, doing things with them, etc.

It seems that the appropriate type of love for a Christian relationship is a combination of these two types of love. As much as I've tried, and as many people as I've asked, I've never really come up with any better definitions of love, so I'm sticking with these.

[Sith of blades]

Okay, first of all, I'm 8th grade, age 14. Just so ya'll know.

Love, in it's core self, is God. God is love. Love is God. Really, thats about all the answer you NEED to that question. But since that isn't what your looking for, I'll actually answer the question.

Love, is a strong, or intence feeling of need, longing, or draw to a person, animal. I'm not going to include anything that doesn't have life in it. Because I don't think you 'love' items, you get addicted to them.
Now, though you can get 'addicted' to people, it is a little different.

Everyone feels love. At different intervals and levels, yes, but everyone feels love. For a young teen such as myself and others my age, give or take two or three years either way. Love is the strongest feeling in that direction that you've felt. Because as much as I don't like to admit it, when you are young, you tend to more love 'blindly' not 'responcibly' like you do more as you mature and become an adult.

I gotta go, I'll write more, and finish that thought, later.

[Pre-Ex-Girlfriend]

I like Daniel's answers (a commitment to someone's best interest and a desire for intimacy).

Also, I have learned that love is a choice (I guess that's where the commitment part comes in). You don't just "fall" into love, you choose to love someone.

[Rainer.]

I love that song.

I agree with what Rachel and Daniel had to say.

"Falling in love" is more along the lines of Daniel's #2. #1 is the choice. For today's society, the first seems to always precede the second, while it's not always the best way to go about things. Over time, some people forget about the committment and when the feeling is gone it seems like an empty relationship. However our feelings can follow our committments. Committing unconditionally will create love, and you can't really commit unconditionally unless the relationship is God-centered.

Always keep it God-centered.

[Sith of blades]

Originally Posted by Emo_Rachael

I like Daniel's answers (a commitment to someone's best interest and a desire for intimacy).

Also, I have learned that love is a choice (I guess that's where the commitment part comes in). You don't just "fall" into love, you choose to love someone.

Kinda. Love is partially a choice, but it isn't at the same time. If it was fully a choice, then why would hurting husbands suffer like they do after their wives death? When they could just chose for all the pain to go away. Love isn't fully a choice. To stay commited to love is, but to love in the first place isn't.

Love is NOT always a commitment to someones best interest. Love is good, when it is excersized wisely. But there are foolish lovers too.
You can love someone fully, with more than you have ever anyone else in your life. But that can mean it gets in the way of stuff that, at the time, needs to come first. Expetially if your not married. When stuff with your girlfriend or boyfriend becomes more imported than your responcibilities, and than your family at home. Then the love is NOT to your best interest. It could be hurting you and hurting people around you.

What about when your gf/bf dumps you? Or someone you love dies? And you still love them? That love then isn't really to your best interest because that feeling of longing for them is hurting you. Some people have lost their minds or commited suicide when something like that happened. That is NOT to their best interest.

[acrossthesirion]

Originally Posted by Sith of blades

Kinda. Love is partially a choice, but it isn't at the same time. If it was fully a choice, then why would hurting husbands suffer like they do after their wives death? When they could just chose for all the pain to go away. Love isn't fully a choice. To stay commited to love is, but to love in the first place isn't.

Love is NOT always a commitment to someones best interest. Love is good, when it is excersized wisely. But there are foolish lovers too.
You can love someone fully, with more than you have ever anyone else in your life. But that can mean it gets in the way of stuff that, at the time, needs to come first. Expetially if your not married. When stuff with your girlfriend or boyfriend becomes more imported than your responcibilities, and than your family at home. Then the love is NOT to your best interest. It could be hurting you and hurting people around you.

What about when your gf/bf dumps you? Or someone you love dies? And you still love them? That love then isn't really to your best interest because that feeling of longing for them is hurting you. Some people have lost their minds or commited suicide when something like that happened. That is NOT to their best interest.

That first part reminds me of St. Augustine and I agree. Love is our choice and not our choice at the same time (I know it's weird).

But on the other points I would have to disagree, well kinda. Love is not about your own best interest first, it is about putting others before you. That is what I think the others were saying

And about sadness, I don't think it is bad in itself. Dwelling on sadness too much causes the pain not the sadness itself. It is not the emotions that hurt us, it is the distortion of them when they are not held in their proper spots under God (haha more Augustine ).

[Sith of blades]

Originally Posted by acrossthesirion

That first part reminds me of St. Augustine and I agree. Love is our choice and not our choice at the same time (I know it's weird).

But on the other points I would have to disagree, well kinda. Love is not about your own best interest first, it is about putting others before you. That is what I think the others were saying

And about sadness, I don't think it is bad in itself. Dwelling on sadness too much causes the pain not the sadness itself. It is not the emotions that hurt us, it is the distortion of them when they are not held in their proper spots under God (haha more Augustine ).

Hm, yeah, thats true. When they said 'to someones best interest' I took it as the lover. Like as another way to write it would be 'to your best interest.' But you make a valid point.

Love is putting others first, to a degree. Putting others first is a part of love, thats selflessness. But that is not all of love.

Whats the bible say?
Love is patient,
Love is kind,
Love is not quick to anger,
Love does not boast,
etc etc.

Sadness isn't a good thing. Sadness is caused when a bad thing has happened. How we handle our grief can make a big difference in how it effects us.

Not nessesarily, emotions DO hurt us. Jesus prolly felt hurt in the gaurden, and he was fully 100% in Gods will. Jesus felt grief and pain at what was about to come. He was so nervous he actually sweat blood.

[acrossthesirion]

Ecclesiastes 3:2-4
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance

If Jesus experienced sadness how could it be bad?

What do you mean by hurt?

[bobthecockroach]

Originally Posted by Sith of blades

Kinda. Love is partially a choice, but it isn't at the same time. If it was fully a choice, then why would hurting husbands suffer like they do after their wives death? When they could just chose for all the pain to go away. Love isn't fully a choice. To stay commited to love is, but to love in the first place isn't.

Indeed, that's what I was saying. Love is both commitment and desire. There could be pain from both areas. Obviously, to have someone close to you taken away will hurt because you desired and enjoyed their company. It also hurts when you have a commitment to something and your ability to fulfill that commitment is suddenly destroyed.

Love is NOT always a commitment to someones best interest. Love is good, when it is excersized wisely. But there are foolish lovers too.
You can love someone fully, with more than you have ever anyone else in your life. But that can mean it gets in the way of stuff that, at the time, needs to come first. Expetially if your not married. When stuff with your girlfriend or boyfriend becomes more imported than your responcibilities, and than your family at home. Then the love is NOT to your best interest. It could be hurting you and hurting people around you.

Well, when I said "someone" I meant the someone that you love, not yourself. The best definition is that love is "effectively willing the good of the beloved," but that's not really modern English, so I don't like to use it.

I would argue that love itself is always good but it can be become misdirected or unbalanced. A love which prevents you from fulfilling your responsibilities in unbalanced. The love itself is by no means bad.

What about when your gf/bf dumps you? Or someone you love dies? And you still love them? That love then isn't really to your best interest because that feeling of longing for them is hurting you. Some people have lost their minds or commited suicide when something like that happened. That is NOT to their best interest.

Well again, my first definition of love is about commiting to someone else's best interest, not your own.

There's also my second definition. When you someone dumps you, it hurts because you were committed to them and close to them.

As for the matter of it not being in your best interest to be in pain, I disagree and I actually think, given the choice, most people would not make the pain of losing someone just vanish if they could. To eliminate the pain, one would have to eliminate the love, and it is simply not worth it.

The thing about the commitment form of love is that it is a permanent commitment. Hence, Paul says that "Love never fails," and Pope Benedict XVI says:

It is part of love's growth towards higher levels and inward purification that it now seeks to become definitive, and it does so in a twofold sense: both in the sense of exclusivity (this particular person alone) and in the sense of being “for ever”. Love embraces the whole of existence in each of its dimensions, including the dimension of time. It could hardly be otherwise, since its promise looks towards its definitive goal: love looks to the eternal. Love is indeed “ecstasy”, not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God: “Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Lk 17:33), as Jesus says throughout the Gospels (cf. Mt 10:39; 16:25; Mk 8:35; Lk 9:24; Jn 12:25). In these words, Jesus portrays his own path, which leads through the Cross to the Resurrection: the path of the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies, and in this way bears much fruit. Starting from the depths of his own sacrifice and of the love that reaches fulfilment therein, he also portrays in these words the essence of love and indeed of human life itself. - Deus Caritas Est

[acrossthesirion]

Your right on

[crazychu]

okay here's a twist nowwhat is romantic love?

[bobthecockroach]

Actually, that's not really a twist. I think romantic love is basically a desire for intimacy. Hopefully, with that desire there will also be some of the commitment side of love, but I think most of the time the term romantic love is used to refer to my second definition of love.

[Rainer.]

Besides, everyone uses these words so differently that it's almost impossible to define it. So debating sematics is... well, dumb.