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“One is very crazy when in love.” (Sigmund Freud)
As I mentioned in my first post in this series, the first time a girl said she loved me was in the 5th grade. Since then a few other chicks have expressed their love to me; sometimes I was romantically involved with the girl, while others were just friends who had (up until when they uttered those three lil’ words) kept their feelings secret. With the exception of the 5th grade incident all of the other girls that have said it, meant it. What I’ve noticed is that love makes people do and say things they otherwise wouldn’t. But this post isn't a catalogue of my experiences, rather I'm going to talk about how being in love regulates your behavior; what sorts of things it makes you do.
So what I won’t do here is provide an account of what love is. Love's a tricky thing to define. Soo many people have already tried to tackle that topic and, without having read much of it, my contributions wouldn’t be particularly insightful. But even though my aim is to describe what love will make you do, it'll be worthwhile to at least make a few broad and sweeping statements about what it means to be in love with someone. First of all, let's focus on love between people in romantic relationships (by that I mean sexually active ones, or at the least ones that used to be sexually active… surely your grandparents are in love in the relevant way despite the fact that they don’t… ya know). When you’re in love you’ve got a deep and meaningful connection with her - a bond that isn't shared with anyone else - which is manifested in the feelings. It might be describable as feeling completely content with the person as she (or he) is. While you might prefer her behave or act differently, you’d be just as happy if those changes never happened. Moreover, the way you feel towards her is such that, were you never romantically associated with anyone else, you'd be happy (so long as you have the one you love). While there are undoubtedly other conditions or properties to being in love, at the very least this is an adequate description of the minimum standard. Suffice it to say that if you don’t meet this standard, you’ve either got "love-with-reservations" or maybe just a "deep admiration" for your significant other. When you get down to it, love is unqualified; to say that you love someone but don’t surpass this minimum threshold is to say that you love someone conditionally, which, ultimately, doesn’t count as love at all. I also want to reject the suggestion that love is subjective or relativistic – that everyone can have their own conception of what love is. Having said all that let's not get stuck on what we mean by love. I think, or hope, that we all more or less have a sufficiently clear intuitive understanding to move on.
Turning to the question at hand, if you're in love, how does that impact the way you act? In short, being in love regulates your behavior and your disposition towards others. So if you love someone you’ll act differently towards that person and approach the relationship with a different mindset than you might otherwise. But you’ll also relate to others differently. Let me explain. Being in love with someone will prevent you from developing a similar connection with someone else. The bond you have with your significant other is of such a privileged kind that you won't be capable of developing a similar conflicting connection with someone else. If you think you can fall in love with multiple people at the same time, then you aren't experiencing genuine love; the love you feel is incomplete; you fail to meet the minimum standard I described above. Love will also keep you from acting poorly towards the one you love (or, to put that differently, it'll make you try to be the best partner you can be). What this means is that love will make you want to, as much as is possible, keep from infringing on the happiness of your loved one (or, to put that differently, it’ll make you strive to be an enabler of her happiness). Ultimately, you’ll want your significant other to do that which will make her happiest and you won't let your feelings get in the way. So, for instance, if you're a jealous person, as much as you possibly can, you'll control that and let her associate with who she wants. After all, trust is a prerequisite for love. This also means that you'll be willing to let a loved one go, if it's in her best interest. By that I mean, if you genuinely love someone, you'd be willing to end the relationship if you know you’ll only hold her back; you’d be willing to sacrifice your own happiness for hers.
When you boil it down, what I’ve said here is that being in love will make you selfless. As I’ve said in a previous post (see: “On Being Jaded”) people are inherently selfish and self-interested. The caveat that I now add to that claim is that you’ll act selflessly towards a person you genuinely love. Because such behavior is atypical to how people normally are it might make you seem just a little crazy. I could say more, but I think that’s enough for now. This is just my spur-of-the-moment thoughts on the subject. I could be wrong. After all, what do I know.
NB: An interesting follow-up question (that I won’t blog about) is: Why does love make you act the way you do when in love? Off hand an appropriate answer would seem to need to be predicated on what I’ve said here coupled with a robust account of love is and its properties are.
6 comments:
Paul-
Like many other things, I think love is individual – to the person feeling it, and to the relationship itself.
What about the case with loving your parents? I think that the first stages of being in love you do crazy things almost because you are afraid that you are going to lose that person. You like that person a whole lot, are totally happy being around them and making them happy, and may do crazy things to keep them around. Sometimes people get to the point of obsession if they feel that another person is not reciprocating the same kind of love. However, after a few years, once you think you already have them, that love seems to be taken for granted. (Like with your parents) You love them, but like a couple that has been married for a few years, you may stop doing nice things for them. Perhaps that’s just the nature of love. It wears off, and becomes more of a commitment… a loyalty. And then a mutual respect. Therefore, in the first place, love itself has to ride on more than lust and enjoying company if it is to last and evolve. Relationships do change, and they do evolve. And I think that is why there are many definitions for love (and it is so individualized).
So what I am saying is that while being in love may make you seem selfless, it is based on a selfish desire for that person’s company. Not necessarily a bad quality… but eventually that selflessness will wear off because it is not true selflessness. However, that doesn’t mean you don’t love the person. Just that you don’t think you have to be “selfless” in order to love them. I also think that people may continue to do nice things for others even if they don’t love them, and even if they still love them and they don’t feel the need to do nice things for them.
Indeed, love is individual, and so are people.
P.S. Grandparents have TONS of sex. That's why STDs are rampant in rest homes. The oldies hump like rabbits, and they don't use contraception because they don't think they have to worry about... that. At least that's what I've heard.
[Reply to Jess]
Thanks for the comment! You make some interesting claims and, by addressing them, I should be able to further my position.
First, you ask about love like love-for-parents. As I said in the post, I’m only concerned with ‘romantic love’. Other kinds of love – love for parents, friends, pets, cars, potato chips – are of a fundamentally different sort. And we express different things when we say things like “I love my best friend” and “I love my girlfriend”. These other kinds of love denote something important about your relationship with that person or object, but it’s something other than the love you experience when you’re ‘in love’ with someone. So while it’s similar to romantic love (or ‘genuine love’ as I called it in the original post), it’s lacking in important ways. Off hand it might be the kind of conditional love I mentioned in the post (i.e. love that fails to meet the minimum standard I described).
Second, you assert that romantic love is individuated, subjective, relativistic, or whatever. Despite what you say, I maintain that that’s false. Romantic love is an emotional state; it’s a feeling… like anger or sadness. Those of us that have experienced a particular feeling know what it’s like and, a result of those experiences, we know what others go through when they experience that particular feeling. I can relate to you when you feel angry because I know what it’s like to be angry. Similarly for romantic love. These are universal states that don’t vary from person to person. What will vary is how feelings, like being in love, are expressed. That will be different for each individual and the nature of the relationship (s)he has with the person (s)he loves. But everyone that’s genuinely in love is basically experiencing the same thing because we’re all basically the same; we’re all human beings. So I can agree that love will always be individual to a particular relationship, love itself is not. (As an aside, people who are defective, physically (i.e. brain) or otherwise, might experience love differently, but they’re peripheral cases that aren’t worth getting stuck on… at least for the purposes of this discussion. I also don’t want to get stuck on scepticism-type concerns like “How do I know my experience of an emotion is the same as your? Just like how I don’t know that an apple tastes the same for you as it tastes for me.” If you’re stuck on this we’ll just end up talking past each other.)
Third, you described how love can change over the course of a romantic relationship. This is an excellent point. Love does evolve. However romantic love can, or maybe most often does, devolve to friendship-type love (i.e. love that no longer meet that minimum threshold I described; it morphs into the love you have for close friends or family members). The case you described - where one ceases to be selfless towards the person (s)he loves - is a clear instance of such devolution. But in cases where, as you say, “selflessness will wear off because it is not true selflessness” that person was never genuinely in love in the first place. Proper romantic love necessarily requires the appropriate kind of authentic selflessness. When someone is genuinely in love, (s)he will primarily want to spend time with the person (s)he loves because that person wants to spend time with him/her. If the person (s)he loves didn’t want to spend time with him/her, (s)he would (selflessly) sacrifice her happiness (i.e. the joy (s)he would derive from spending time with that person) since such a course of action maximizes happiness for the person (s)he loves.
whoa whoa... hold on...where's Alex's post??? I was looking forward to reading his views on NZ nationalism and I log on to find Paul's third instalment on relations. I still hadn't had time to digest part two yet. Is Alex okay... ? Is there something more important to him than the blog…? (cause the blog’s numero uno for me!) As an avid and frequent reader of a Wordonfailure I look forward to the two contrasting viewpoints presented in this online blog and the dialogue that is put forth between Alex and Paul’s topics…if this trend continues you will have definitely lost one reader.
In response to Jess’ #2: Ewwww!! TMI
And as a comment to the post: I think that we all do have this kind of ideal of love that is not so much individualised, so I think we all have an ideal that we ‘aim for’. ()
As an observation to the degradation of relationships after the initial ‘attraction/romance/love’ and falling into a routine and becoming self motivated rather than selfless - I would like to blame this on what I will coin as the ‘fairytale ending syndrome’ in which we only know about how Prince Charming comes and takes the princess to his castle in a fit of passion and we do not come to know the rest of the story as their romantic adventures of spiralling staircased towers and dragons has degraded to a life of taking kids to jousting practice three nights a week while they spells cast by their other child’s fairy godmother loom over their princess until her 18th birthday. Meanwhile the deteriorating Queen has a resentment to the king while he prances around in a land far far away in some diplomatic campaign….> Anyways here’s my abstractish point: since we have this idealised view of romance/falling in love due to the archetypes we can fall out of this romantic type of love more easily (because we don‘t know how the ‘lived happily ever after’). And because the story focuses on falling in love and not maintaining the relationship ‘life/stuff/routine’ gets in the way. So anyways I’d like to say that our views on how we feel are shaped through structures such as this (ie Disney for now…) However I Still agree with Paul as the ideal of what selflessness entails and what we should hold as an ideal/something to aim for - I just think that the way it is packaged to us is misleading (maybe now what I said makes sense?)
*please note: I just read your blog than the other 2 as well so if this doesn’t really apply to a particular part I’m sorry, and possibly your blog could have just generated ramblings from me and not relate at all. I think what sparked it was Jess saying individualistic (this is how I think we form our own opinions as children in ‘fairytales’ and I think that true love is a difficult thing to attain therefore it is NOT storybook at all rather something to work on - but it should come more easier than harder with the right person.)
Hi Paul,
Love can't really be unconditional without being empty. It has to be conditional on the person you love staying more or less the same, or developing in some ways rather than others. Otherwise, what is it that you love?
And having said that, if you don't retain a level of selfishness, you risk failing to defend the things about you that your lover fell in love with you in the first place. Your lover probably didn't fall in love with someone obsequeous. The selflessness message is important, but some people are inclined to err in that very direction!
Matt - I think you make a good point about our expectations and what we're indoctrinated to think 'love' should be. (This faulty indoctrination is a major problem with contemporary society.) It seems like a plausible reason for why people today don’t truly understand what love is, or how it makes you act.
David - Interesting claims. But I never said love necessarily makes you act in a way that facilitates your lover loving you back. Someone who's genuinely in love might act in such a way that drives the person she loves away. (E.g. If the loved one like her because she's selfish, then the fact that she's in love (and acts selflessly) would drive the loved one away. This seems very plausible to me.) Being in love need not have a means or mechanism for it to endure. After all, a trait of love could be that it's fleeting... While that’s unfortunate, the fact that a traits or effect of being in love is negative is not grounds to dismiss it as an actual trait.
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