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May. 11th, 2013 01:57 pmStarting to think love doesn't exist/isn't real, and what I have been feeling all these years is simply the result of high-potential hypersensitivity. The bell curve (90%+) of people, do not feel it this way. There's no socioeconomic argument for relationships anymore because women can A. take a man for child support once she has a child and B. a single mother can get all kinds of help with daycare etc. via the state. (I grant that pre-child support a woman might have been forced to stay in an unhappy/abusive relationship, but I'm speaking purely within the socioeconomic realm - where once there was a reason (financial support) there is no longer.) Mating isn't devalued of course but as above, there's less and less reason for a woman to stay with a man permanently, especially if she prefers changes of scenery/body/experience every so often. Maybe for the kids sake, but even this argument, given the current mindset of psychology, might not hold true - there doesn't appear to be any real argument for the benefit of two-parent child-rearing. The grass is always greener and there's always the potential for something better (someone better in bed, someone who has more money, someone who has more time, someone who has a different attitude/personality, someone who has a more attractive body, someone who is a better "match" from the gate, without effort by either party.)
I'm not even sure why I ever believed there was any kind of solid foundation for this "thing" or "experience" we call "love." What is that anyway? Everyone is simply doing what's in their best interest at a given time, given the circumstances and situation. Subconsciously or consciously, they are weighing the situation and the potential and we make decisions based on that. What reason is there, again, for even being in a relationship? Sex when you want it? Someone who (might) care about you and stick by you? Someone who (might) share some household responsibilities and some experiences with you? Contrasted by the fact that at any given moment, NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO, they might just crush your feelings all over the pavement when the pendulum swings just enough the other direction to make them feel that staying with you no longer meets their flavor of the month needs/desires?
I almost think that, the only reason I felt love existed is because my parents never split up. What I saw in them, I've tried to mimic in my relationships and ultimately that hasn't been good enough for any of these girls. Love was a word I placed upon numerous symbols and perceptions I had since before I can even consciously recall memories. It's not a real thing - it's an amalgamation of memories both conscious and unconscious, and I wasn't the one living them - I was the one watching them. Ergo, I do not /know/ what love /actually is/. More than likely, the term is used so loosely and in so myriad ways that there is no concrete definition, nor any real reason to believe that it is in actuality a real thing...but rather it is something completely foreign to the conscious mind and more or less some kind of abstract, unrealistic idealization of the reality, which is that most people, while possibly having a capacity to "love" in varying degrees, are also more than willing to crush you if it means they're going to get a better deal.
To summarize, your end of the bargain /probably/ doesn't matter to anyone but /you/.
As for love, and there being no solid foundation, I can only explain what I thought love was as the series of emotions, and the emotions that follow given thoughts or memories, as experience of love. For instance, thinking of one of my exes might elicit a "positive" emotion, or a "protective" emotion - the desire to protect and care for that person; the sensation of a "lightening" of my heart, as though prior to the thought and response, it were heavy. But is that what love is? If so, it is just a series of neurological/electro-chemical responses in my physical body, the result of a memory being accessed within my physical brain. No mysticism necessary - these sensations are just a different form of experience, all manner of which we have daily, from the intoxication of consuming alcohol to the aches and pains of repetitive motion injuries and daily work. And given that, I expect that I can't ever trust another person to feel that sensation for me even regularly enough to stick by my side for a few years...let alone a lifetime.
I'm not even sure why I ever believed there was any kind of solid foundation for this "thing" or "experience" we call "love." What is that anyway? Everyone is simply doing what's in their best interest at a given time, given the circumstances and situation. Subconsciously or consciously, they are weighing the situation and the potential and we make decisions based on that. What reason is there, again, for even being in a relationship? Sex when you want it? Someone who (might) care about you and stick by you? Someone who (might) share some household responsibilities and some experiences with you? Contrasted by the fact that at any given moment, NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO, they might just crush your feelings all over the pavement when the pendulum swings just enough the other direction to make them feel that staying with you no longer meets their flavor of the month needs/desires?
I almost think that, the only reason I felt love existed is because my parents never split up. What I saw in them, I've tried to mimic in my relationships and ultimately that hasn't been good enough for any of these girls. Love was a word I placed upon numerous symbols and perceptions I had since before I can even consciously recall memories. It's not a real thing - it's an amalgamation of memories both conscious and unconscious, and I wasn't the one living them - I was the one watching them. Ergo, I do not /know/ what love /actually is/. More than likely, the term is used so loosely and in so myriad ways that there is no concrete definition, nor any real reason to believe that it is in actuality a real thing...but rather it is something completely foreign to the conscious mind and more or less some kind of abstract, unrealistic idealization of the reality, which is that most people, while possibly having a capacity to "love" in varying degrees, are also more than willing to crush you if it means they're going to get a better deal.
To summarize, your end of the bargain /probably/ doesn't matter to anyone but /you/.
As for love, and there being no solid foundation, I can only explain what I thought love was as the series of emotions, and the emotions that follow given thoughts or memories, as experience of love. For instance, thinking of one of my exes might elicit a "positive" emotion, or a "protective" emotion - the desire to protect and care for that person; the sensation of a "lightening" of my heart, as though prior to the thought and response, it were heavy. But is that what love is? If so, it is just a series of neurological/electro-chemical responses in my physical body, the result of a memory being accessed within my physical brain. No mysticism necessary - these sensations are just a different form of experience, all manner of which we have daily, from the intoxication of consuming alcohol to the aches and pains of repetitive motion injuries and daily work. And given that, I expect that I can't ever trust another person to feel that sensation for me even regularly enough to stick by my side for a few years...let alone a lifetime.
