Does any one know the answer????????

My mother used to say that true love was when your beloved had a terrible cold, and was blowing and sneezing, with a big red nose, and was generally miserable, and all you wanted to do was help make him/her better!

I like that one!

There is no such thing as "true love". You should be lucky to find a very good "false" love that makes you happy.

The very purpose of love is biological trickery. It is nature's to get us to have kids, keep us around long to raise our kids and keep us from killing people in our community.

Every stage of a relationship is necessarily based on falsehood.

In the beginning of a relation neithership person can admit their true desires or the reason for entering a relationship. It is, of course all about sex and security. But, we can't admit this to our partner or even to ourselves. Love is the perfect fiction to reconcile this problem.

As a relationship progresses the fiction of love is all encompasing. We become blind to all of the faults of our partner. But, of course, these faults are still there in truth. Passion and its irrational drive and its blindness are false.

A mature relationship is equally false. A "loving" husband will not see the extra pounds or wrinkles. A "loving" wife will not admit the the ways her husband failed to fulfill her expectations. Of course we ignore these facts in the interest of "love". But this is not truth.

I am not against love. I am just saying that it is a fiction. If you choose to indulge you should embrace it for what it is-- a glorious fantasy based on falsehood.

If you are looking for truth- best to stay away from love.

ebrown_p dude!

What you state ebrown is very grim. Are you a half empty glass or what. I also do not believe in the biological trickery as I know lots of couples who do not want or plan on ever having children.

Also, as far as not seeing faults of our partners. Believe me I know all the faults of my husband. Do they annoy me? Yes and he knows it does. And my faults annoy him. We do not ignore these, but we accept them and deal with them because we love the other person. Actually that is a good definition of true love. We know the faults of our loved ones, but we are accepting of them because those faults are what make them part of who they are.

I like what ebrown had to say. It's realism IMO!!

there's multiple industries that are built around love

when the little baby come squirting out of the mom - you tell that mom - this has nothing to do with love - for the 15 billionth time

Linkat, It is not grim.

Love is a lie, but it is a wonderful lie! The truth can not compare. The fact that love is false is the reason it is so powerful.

Love is, of course, a biological trickery. Nature's strategy is to get people to have sex. Nowadays we can fool nature to some extent by having sex without having babies. I bet these couples you talk of do have sex.

Just consider the best and the most powerful parts of the lie that is love...

In reality two imperfect sweaty bodies come together in awkward positions to exchange fluids.

With love this is a powerful emotional experience that has a deep emotional, even spiritual significance.

In reality the little baby squirts out of mom is small, chubby, wrinkly and smells funny. It will cry and keep you awake at night and will be a leach for years -- taking without giving anything in return. It will cost thousands of dollars and in 15 years will end up cursing you.

With love this is a precious little treasure that is worth more than all the world. Somehow you are persuaded that little smiles and feeble attempts at bad art are worth the pain, trouble and financial costs.

In reality I am a balding chubby somewhat cynical man in his late thirties. I have an rather boring life and character flaws that can be annoying.

With love I am a prince married to a beatiful princess who says I make her happy and that she wants to stay with me forever.

In reality, in 100 years we will all be dead. But love is eternal.

Love is false, and necessisarily so. We wouldn't want it any other way.

This poem by Viorst kinda sums it up for me:

Judith Viorst
TRUE LOVE

It is true love because
I put on eyeliner and a concerto and make pungent observations about the great issues of the day
Even when there's no one here but him,
And because
I do not resent watching the Green Bay Packers
Even though I am philosophically opposed to football,
And because
When he is late for dinner and I know he must be either having an affair or lying dead in the middle of the street,
I always hope he's dead.

It's true love because
If he said quit drinking martinis but I kept drinking them and the next morning I couldn't get out of bed,
He wouldn't tell me he told me,
And because
He is willing to wear unironed undershorts
Out of respect for the fact that I am philosophically opposed to ironing,
And because
If his mother was drowning and I was drowning and he had to choose one of us to save,
He says he'd save me.

It's true love because
When he went to San Francisco on business while I had to stay home with the painters and the exterminator and the baby who was getting the chicken pox,
He understood why I hated him,
And because
When I said that playing the stock market was juvenile and irresponsible and then the stock I wouldn't let him buy went up twenty-six points,
I understood why he hated me,
And because
Despite cigarette cough, tooth decay, acid indigestion, dandruff, and other features of married life that tend to dampen the fires of passion,
We still feel something
We can call
True love.



It's different for everybody, but when ya got it...ya know it.

Goddess of Love, reporting in...

I interviewed an elderly couple some years ago. I was writing a feature article on long marriages. The two of them had been married for almost 60 years. I was divorced at the time and quite impressed that any two people could make it together for that long. After chatting for almost an hour, the wife excused herself to go to the kitchen and check on dinner in the oven.

Once she was safely out of earshot, the old man leaned across the coffee table toward me and said in a low voice, "I want you to know, that woman is the kindest person I have ever met."

These two had been through wars, children born, children lost, grandchildren born, grandchildren lost, extreme poverty, life-threatening accidents and illnesses and who-knows-what-all else. They had seen each other at their best, and undoubtedly also at their worst, their ugliest, their meanest, and their most stubborn. Repeatedly, ad nauseum, for sixty long, damned years. And after all of that.......he could still sit there and say in all honesty that she was the kindest person he had ever met. I was dumbfounded.

If that isn't real love, I don't know what is.

Trust

e-brown - I love (Oops, in your book this is a lie, sorry) appreciate your point of view - a good debate is so refreshing.

I understand your BIOLOGICAL take on being human, can't find fault with that. The thing you said about the truth being so powerful is also compelling, can't find fault with that.

However, if we both agree TRUTH is best - you forgot or perhaps never experienced certain TRUTH about LOVE.

LOVING someone or something isn't about a preconceived idea about who or what that person or thing is. Love, at least in my life, is about UNDERSTANDING and CHOICE. That's the other side of our BIOLOGICAL existence.

Your appearance however viewed is not the WHOLE of who you are. If your theory was universal, and if everything in life was only about reproduction and continuance, then why don't we all see only the basic structure of being human. It is because I believe we as humans are more complex. That is why we EVOLVE. That is why we CREATE. That is why we seek KNOWLEDGE. That is why so many great artists, poets, and leaders have been people with PASSION and VISION.

When I have experienced LOVE in my life, it seems as tho it was always the by-product of wanting MORE than the surface of someone or something. Not FANTASY per se, a better connection to the infinite, a higher self if you will.

This far supersedes the basics. Yes, the basics exist for sure. But I contend, that is not the whole of who we are as humans. LOVE is a by-product of our human experience. Maybe in your estimation is not as tangible as sex, hunger and the need for shelter but as humans we can certainly CHOOSE to define each of our own personal IDEAS about LIVING.

Best, J,
P.S. Oh by the way, even chubby, balding, cynical men need LOVE too. (Just Teasing!!)

Eva - I'm with you sister!

Judith Viorst, I remember the name, but not the written matierial. I liked this one a lot, JoeBlow. right there.

Love is WHEN you look like hell, smell like hell, feel like hell and you STILL get a warm greeting, a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the ass...

Welcome to A2k samantha&angie

Thanks J.D. - me and the girls think A2K is very, VERY cool.

Thanks J.D. - me and the girls think A2K is very, VERY cool.

Your welecome - you are welcome.