Can you love without "knowing" a person, place or thing?

I think you're a fruit-cake.

thanks, but I don't like fruit cake.

Nutcake wasn't an option on the poll.

Well I do like nuts much better.

I suspect the answer can be found in this thread:

http://able2know.org/topic/132399-1#post-3651331

I think people define loving very differently, and one person can have a concept of love that has categories for that word within the frame of their personal concept.

I was struck in my teens by some theological concept - was it Aquinas? - that to love was to will good for the person (that was loved). If that is one's definition, then you don't have to "know" the person fully, deeply to feel love.
I've no doubt there are many other definitions or concepts of love.
And even with the "willing good" business, one can particularize who one cares that way about, and at what point thoughts re other people have nothing to do with one's idea of love.

People vary on this.

I think to 'love' someone, something, or someplace is to 'take delight' in him or her or it. I think wishing someone well is wishing them well - but to 'love' someone or someplace- to find being in their presence pleasurable or delightful - yes- I think you have to know the person or have visited the place.

You may take delight in the human race - but to state that you love a person simply because s/he's a human is different than delineating individually by unique personality traits that you find attractive or delightful.

Or at least it is to me. I wish everyone welll. I like the majority of people I meet, and I've never met anyone I've ever wished harm to come to- but I don't think this means I automatically love everyone.

And I've been to enough tropical islands to know that I love being om some and not others. The same applies to people (little joke there).

In terms of your specific example, loving someone on a2k that you've never met, I think it's definitely reasonable to say , 'I love the way so and so writes, or expresses him or herself, or I love the way they seem to know so much about....whatever'.
But I wouldn't be able to say I love someone unless I'd met them. I might be able to say, 'from what I know of you, I think you're someone I would find lovable' or something along those lines - but that's about as far as I'd be able to take it without meeting the person.

Loving a place or a stuffed toy is a lot different than loving someone, on A2K or otherwise. I wouldn't say I love anyone here (or a stuffed animal), but I would say that I love travelling, for example. But as for how you are meaning it, that's only for you to know and understand. I just wouldn't be able to say the same thing... regardless of how many good sides anyone here has. All I'd be able to say is that I like, enjoy, admire, respect, etc... but not 'love'.

wow, this news shocks me, i was pretty sure that all the ladies of a2k loved me

i guess i need to work on my game

On the willing good concept, I think there was supposed to be a lack of self interest or even awareness in the original concept. Our philosophic a2kers will know more about this than I do.

I don't think you're lying, but I suspect I use the word love differently than you do.

I certainly have said/thought that I've enjoyed/appreciated posts, but there's a fairly small group of people that I'd say I love here, there or anywhere. A couple of them ARE A2K'rs, but I don't love them because of their postings at A2K. And certainly in one case, it's very much in spite of their postings at A2K.

Each person has their own interpretation and feelings about "love."

When I say "I love to travel," it has a much different meaning than when I say "I love my family." In general, I may say "I love all peoples," but that's more rhetorical than realistic.

There are different meanings and levels of "love." You can certainly "love without knowing a person," because we all do so to some degree. When somebody says "I love actor xyz," it can have several and different levels of what we consider love. It only becomes an expression for the moment that may change with time or situations.

I love his/her acting.
I love my pet.


You are not lying, and you are not crazy. (But, I may be.)
I love my spouse.
I love my teacher.
I love my parents.
I love my car.
I love a2k.
I love my cellphone.
I love my new camera.
I love my siblings.
I love my baby.
I love to chat.
I love to travel.
I love the color blue.
I love Spain.
I love the people I work with.
I love my president.
I love Doris Day.
I love Bing Crosby.
I love Frank Sinatra.
I love Beethoven.
I love jazz.
I love blues.
I love New Orleans.

and on, and on, and on...

Now you all know why I tagged this thread "Semantics" long before posting anything on it.

Yes.
Just bear that person, place or thing intense good will
and then u will have LOVED that object of your affection.





David

Platonic Love?

If love is a sense of connection, the real question is whether we can romantically love someone we have never met?

What impedes the ability for this to happen? Perhaps it is only the variability between readiness of connection online versus that of real life. Where, a certain level of connection is not met in person, where it was online.

What if the two levels of connection are mutually compatible? Even if it is an astronomical feat. Can someone fall in love with someone they have never met? I would think so.

Yes, I see what you're saying, and in fact, that sort of 'love' might seem even more pure, given that it's not based on more shallow aspects like appearance. A person would be falling in love with thought and intellect - but they're still only really falling in love with what their 'idea' of a person might be.
Although, now that I think about it - that's what most people do anyway - in real life or on line. It's only after living with someone for a while that you're fully aware of all the facets of what that person truly is.

I think to retain and deepen that love and find out if in fact, it's based on any sort of reality- people need to know and learn about each other more fully- or at least I would. But again, I think you're right, in that my own inability to trust what I read without also seeing and experiencing it would be what would impede my intellectual willingness to allow anything more than an interest or admiration or respect for whatever aspects of that person they revealed.



But yeah - people fall in love with 'ideas' all the time.

Actually in this particular case/thread (unlike some others), I am not trying to egg some one on - just curious if anyone feels this way.

So it seems it is just a difference of defining "love". But there are some people I have noticed that is the opposite in a sense. They generally don't feel "love" but almost dislike first and then you must get in their good graces before being "loved".