Category: Dating and Relationships
Ok, due to technical diffuculties, let's try this again:
****Correction****
How do you know if you are in love?
This is not really a story, rather merely a discussion. I just thought I'd post this up to see what you guys think. How do you determine whether or not you are in love? If applicable, of course. What signs do you look for? Do you just know? What do you think? Say whatever you like.
"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own." -- Robert E. Heinlein
It begins with the building of a physical, emotion, and spirtual relationships. Trust is a major factor. When there are major problems and a person stands by no matter how bad thing are happening that is the ultimate sign.
I think it's an enduring thing. It's after the initial infatuation has worn off, a lingering passion and desire to see the other person happy. It's a feeling of respect and adoration for said person that doesn't fade away
Love is a bond that ties so deeply it can't be broken. This applies to any sort of love. Love is where you know, no matter how far away, if the other is hurt or upset, and vice versa. Love is when you fit together, spiritually, emotionally, and physically, where you know you are like two halves of one soul. The signs for me is the connection. Also, the way he treats me, the way I feel for him. I know what lust is. Love feels different--deeper, lasting, eternal.
It is a very common question, "How can I tell I'm in love?", but it is not an easy question to answer. What feels like love to one person may be nothing more than attraction to another. Some people fall in and out of love quickly and often while others are never really in love as much as they are in lust. This can get confusing when you are a teen because romantic love is a relatively new concept for you and you don't know what to expect. You are overwhelmed with all sorts of new feelings and social pressures. They are confusing. What is love? What makes you want a romantic relationship with one person and not another? How does your heart choose a partner? Why does love end? These questions can't be easily answered.
One of the most confusing quasi-love feelings is lust. Lust is a very powerful, very intense feeling of physical attraction toward another person. Lust is mainly sexual in nature - the attraction is superficial based on instant chemistry rather than genuine caring. Usually we lust after people we do not know well, people we still feel comfortable fantasizing about. It is very common for people to confuse lust for love. But why? What is it about lust and love that make them so easy to mix up? If lust is all about sex, how can a relationship without sex be about lust? Teens struggle with this because they see lust in the Biblical sense, but lust isn't that sinister. Lust is about physical attraction and acting ONLY on physical attraction. Love is about much more than that. Yet many teens (and to be fair, many adults) confuse an intense attraction for some sort if divine love. For teens, since feelings of attraction are still new and since pop-culture sells sex and love as one package, it is very easy to get the two mixed up.
Lust is clearly not love. Love is based on more than just physical attraction. Sure, attraction is a factor, but love goes deeper than that. Love is based on caring, friendship, commitment and trust. When you are in love it is as if you have your best most trusted friend at your side AND you feel physically attracted to them. It is the best of both worlds! Love is a shared feeling between two people who have a vested interest in one anothers happiness. Love is not about jealousy. It is not about conflict. It is not about testing. Love is a positive feeling. If it is tainted by mistrust, jealousy, insecurity or spitefulness it is not really love but merely a pale copy. Love is the total surrender of your heart to another person with the security of knowing they will treat it better than you will. Love should feel good. It should not feel bad. Love should make you want to be a better person, it should not lead you to do something self destructive. Love is not demanding of your spirit but lifts it and makes it glow. Love is a good thing. Anything less is lust, deep friendship or attraction. So the sappiness aside, the question remains, how can you tell you are in love?
There is no easy way to find the truth behind your feelings or the feelings of another person but there are some tell-tale signs that love is blooming (or growing deeper). If you agree with 7 of the following 9 statements you are probably in love.
1. You know, because you have been told by your significant other, that your deep feelings are returned in kind.
2. The object of your affections makes you feel special and good about yourself.
3. If/when you feel jealous it is always fleeting; you trust your partner not to betray you or hurt your relationship.
4. Nothing makes you feel as serene as when you and your partner are together.
5. When you fight with your partner you usually make up within a few hours and you always agree that nothing is more important than you both being able to express your true feelings (even if they sometimes cause conflict).
6. Your partner never asks you to choose between him/her and your loyalties to your family and friends - if you do choose him/her over them you always have a good reason and it is always YOUR decision, and your decision alone.
7. Neither you or your partner feel the need to test the other's loyalties or feelings.
8. You are more yourself when with your partner than you are with anybody else.
9. If sex is part of your relationship it is by mutual desire and agreement without the slightest hint of commitment testing or persuasion.
Raaj
wow Raaj, but yet i find myself agreeing with that. my personal appinion is this. when your yung, you don't kno what love really is. i mean, yeah, you kno you love your family and that they love you no matter what, but you can't really kno what the love of another is until your older, and can actually tell lust from love. before all you teenage girls jump and say, "i do kno what love is", you actually don't. i mean think about it. in your teenage years, most girls and guys, will go through multiple partners because "i don't love you anymore", or you have silly little fights, or one of you cheats on the other with someone you find more attractive. that's not love, that's lust. sure, it breaks your heart when it ends, because it hurts when your partner doesn't find you desirable anymore, but if it was truly love then neither of you would let silly little things get in the way of your love, and that tends to happen when your "yung and in love". i'm not saying that it doesn't happen with older people as well, but just from my observations, it happens more with people under 20. ask yourself these questions;
1. what does love mean to me only?
meaning, what do you! as an individual person think love is for you.
2. am i just with someone, because all my friends are with someone, and i don't want to be the only one not with a partner?
being with someone just because everyone else is, isn't love, it's just wanting to "fit in".
yeah, we're all guilty of wanting to "fit in", but that's beside the point. no-one means to go through partners, but it's a part of life wich we can all honestly do without, but it does happen, and that's when we look at it and ask ourselves if it was lust or love we were feeling for the person at the time. i kno of very few "high school sweethearts", because people change as they get older, and so does their feelings about love as well.
I disagree with what you said that all teenagers don't know what love is. Maybe the majority don't, but you shouldn't say that everyone doesn't. And I don't think half of adults do either, or 50% of marriages today wouldn't end in divorce. If these adults truly knew what love meant, they wouldn't tolerate abuse. They wouldn't allow themselves to be walked all over in relationships. They wouldn't feel the need to have affairs, because they would feel comfortable with ending the unhappy relationship they're in rather than cause unnecessary pain for the other person and maybe even their children. Some teens have more insight into this than adults do. I may be considered an adult now (I'm 19), but I knew these things long before now. Sure, when you have your first crush you think it's gonna last forever and what not, and that's definitely not love. But after going through the good and bad times of relationships, you do learn a thing or 2, and it doesn't matter what age you are. So to sum this up, love to me is this: an indescribable feeling that develops over time. It starts with attraction, but evolves past that. When it hits you, you just know, and it's different for everybody, even different from relationship to relationship. Sometimes what you want in a partner changes over time. But that doesn't make it more or less of real love. Finally, as you experience different types of love, your perception of it changes, and you make wiser decisions with each new relationship you enter.
that is why i said most! not all, and why i said that i kno it happens with older people to. however, your "first" boyfriend or girlfriend is a crush, not love, because you don't kno what love is, and you do have to learn it the hard way, just like you learn life the hard way. sure, you may think you kno something, but wait a few years, then you'll look back and find that what you thought you knew, you actually didn't kno, and what you kno now is more different to what you thought it was when you were yungger. i'm nearly 30, and there is a lot for me to still learn about love, like there should be, but looking back, i didn't kno what love was when i was a teenager, and how could i? so jumping up and down and saying that at 19 or whatever you absolutely kno what love is, is just lying to yourself. also, married people getting a divorce doesn't mean that people don't kno what love is. if someone is being abused, then that's why they get out, not because they don't love the person they were married to.
How do i know i'm in love? hmm lets see, I get feelings, that i've never had before. I feel like i can talk to my partner about anything, and if i find that someone who i would take a bullet for, thats love right there
no Jess, that's not love. that's lust. so you get feelings that you've never felt before, big deal. we all get that when we think we're falling for someone, but love isn't just feelings. it's a state of mind, an undescribable longing for someone else, to make someone else happy, a want to share your life with someone. see? this is what i meant by teenagers not knowing what love really and truly is.
blah blah blah. What ever. There's no point for teenagers to post here if Liz is going to jump down our throats every single time, and tells us taht we don't know what we're tlaking about ... lol
lol whatever Minh. it's just an appinion, and if you don't like it, then that's not my problem. this is a board, and people are aloud to have appinions of their own, and unlike some people on here, i don't go around kissing people's asses wanting to fit in to little clicks. so you really should learn to take appinions as just that. it just makes me think that most! teenagers don't kno what love is, if they're going to be stupid about it. if you have an appinion, then say it. your not going to die if you do. like i said, it's just a personal! appinion, and observation, and not worth getting all pissy about. anyway, i'm done. this is all just bullshit, and i have other serious personal life things to deal with, than zone crap.
Being in love for me is a mutual respect for someone else. To make them happy in every way possible.
All right, all right!
First of all, Liz, I'm going to counter what you've said, and agree with post nine. I don't care how old anyone is, I think you can figure out what love means for another at any age. But to go and basically imply the stereotype of teenagers: young and dumb, is just closed-minded.
I'm sixteen, and I've already been through that stage where you think you know what love is. And here I am now, and I know what it is. It's not that I believe or think I know, but I know I know. And I'm neither romantic, nor optimistic.
And now, why would I lie to myself? How will that help me in the long run?
And you might want to take into consideration that you don't know most teenagers. So before you judge one that says they know what love is, contemplate the fact that you don't know them or know about the relationships they've been through.
Anyway, to the main point. I think love is deep passion, or affection for someone. It makes you happy that they're happy. It hurts you to hurt them. You are able to listen to their feelings whether negative or positive. And also, as many others have said, a mutual respect for another person. And of course, there's way more to it. People can talk about what they think it means for hours, and even cut and paste definitions from dictionary.com, but as has been said, it's an undescribeable feeling. So why do we sit here and try to describe it?
And also, I'll point out that it is possible to love someone that does not love you back.
raven baby, think you said everything i thaught lol
Oh yes, and I also forgot to add that love does hurt. It really does, whether it be for a family member, friend, or significant other. You can love someone so much that it hurts when they lie to you or do something that hurts them mentally, physically, or emotionally. Whoever says that love cannot or shouldn't hurt has some learning to do. It sure as hell hurts when you love someone so much that you miss them; that you wish they could be right there with you, or vice versa.
And also, love is blind too. Unfortunately, it sometimes causes us to not see the wrong in what others do because we love them so much and don't want to believe they are a bad person.
Too, there are two kinds of love: conditional and unconditional. Conditional love is when someone has to do something for you in order to maintain your love for them, whether it be physical activity, emotional comfort or reassurance, or saying the words. Yes, those things are important in a relationship, but then, that brings us to unconditional love. That's when you love a person no matter what. You love them if they lie to you, if they cheat on you, if they abandon you, and even if they put you down, you still love them. You can love a person, but just dislike the way they behave. Well, some people will say: "How the hell could or would you continue a relationship with someone who cheated on you?" If a person can do this, they are very determined, persistent, and can handle quite a bit of pain and will themselves to work through it.
Everyone has their own definition of love, and I don't think there's any set standard.
Speaking as a hopeless romantic you just know when you are in love but you should always look for signs like how that person makes you feel.
if when you in that person's arms and it feels like nothing else matters the world can't hurt you and like you have your own sanctuary and you feel like you are floating in mid-air then you are probbaly in love
If you kiss that person and it feels like time stops and the world is spinning around you then you are probbaly in love
yes these seem very cliche but they are true signs...I should know
but also speaking as a hopeless romantic who has loved and gotten his heart broken just because you love them doesn't mean they love you in return so make sure you know what you are doing before you give your heart to someone
your heart is like a priceless egg and if broken it can stay like that forever. Not allowing you to let real love into your life when it comes along
Love is not just that, It doesn't come out of no where there are numerous amounts of signals. First one can not love simply because they just do as that signifies that they do not know the whole of it. Second they can't just know they are in love.
You know you are in love by looking at your friendship and determining if you have values of the other person and how much of them match up and how many of them are important, and how many are just silly. Then determine if you are living for those values and are friends with them because of it and live on those values and are happy because he shares them. The correct thing to observe is do you feel cozy and love sick inside because of those values. If they have become one of your values, and you hang on to life with one goal as being able to see those values more, in a very intimate way. Does your partner feel the same way? Do you both think of each other as the values you must only sacrifice yourself for except for yourself?