Is Love A Choice?

I agree. We choose to put ourselves on the market or not. Note how many adulterers say "It just happened!", and how false it sounds.

I believe that as well. That is, if we're talking about falling in love with a person outside of your family and your children, that is.

You can have inexplicable crushes on people, you can develop the hots for someone but that isn't love. I think most people experience these feelings, crushes and lust, and mistake them for love and that's where they fool themselves, especially if the other person is a challenge or a no-no like another mans' wife or the proverbial bad boy and there's sneaking around involved. Then you have the element of danger on top of lust, which can be quite powerful but again, that isn't love. That's just sneaky hotpants.

You can be smart about love but it seems most people prefer to remain powerless about it and out of control. They feel that it's more 'romantic' that way. To me, there's nothing more romantic than falling in love with someone who's free, available and more than ready to love you back.

I agree...I think we choose to love whom we will. I do believe that "chemistry" and "love" are two different things. Chemistry being lust - or "the hots" (I hate that term...reminds me of dogs for some reason"). And love being the rational mind appreciating the worth of a person - with or without the sex. It is why some marriages last longer than others. Some couples choose to love even when the chemistry "just ain't there" and others feel that the marriage is over because things have gotten a little stale in the sex department. JMO

I think, believe, and live love as a choice.

The problem is, my emotional/psychological intelligence isn't always on par with this.

True love is your soul's recognition of its counterpoint in another.

Even if you're too immature to walk the walk once ya "recognize"?

don't be so hard on yourself....there's many a slip 'twixt the hips and the lips :wink:

Pfft! Wasn't talking about myself, silly.

well I know you weren't talking about me.... who are we talking about?

Do we have to be talking about anybody?

Aunt Jemima and her sweet talk of how her soul recognized mine, then she went and poured herself onto that waffle?!

are you mocking me? ya try to contribute....what thanks do you get

I'm not mocking you.

I was honestly asking. Following that belief, how does poor behavior that hurts the one you love fit in?

O course you don't have to explain anything to me if you don't want. But I was just asking.

mushy honey, we're just playing here.

My quote was from The Wedding Crashers for God's sake. I wanted to see if anyone picked up on it.

Wedding Crashers?!

No ****.

Too lowbrow for me. I prefer Trailer Park Boys for love quotes.

Yep - well said.

What you call "the hots" my mate & I call "newness" as in; "when the newness wears off - is when the relationship really begins".

whoever is interested in this thread owe it to read this

http://thisibelieve.org/dsp_ShowEssay.php?topessays=1&uid=31760

The times I've been in love, it wasn't by choice. It just happened.

I wish it was a choice.

It is a choice to some extent. You have to "allow yourself" to love in the first place. Be emotionally open to that possibility in the first place...but that's a pretty deep choice that we don't often articulate in our consciousness.

Some years back I've read a study on success of arranged marriages and 'love' marriages. Turns out that the partners we choose and partners our parents would choose are pretty darn close. And that the social/cultural compatibility has a lot to do with success of the marriage, so that ultimately it doesn't matter all that much how the marriage started.... or something along those lines. It was very very interesting, though I wouldn't have any clue where to look for it now.

It may be a choice for some, but I can't even imagine that.

It's never been a choice with me. My heart goes where it goes and it's stronger than I.