What is love?

No, we took a class on good Science Fiction, not the half-assed kind you're talking about. (Although I did take a class on that, too, which is how I found this site in the first place, back in the day.)

Wanna put up a picture for the rest of us to judge? I completely agree. There is someone in my philosophy class right now that I can't stop myself from thinking about all the time. It just clicked when I first met him on the first day of class.Anyway, be glad that you've found the one. So far, I've been having to suppress my feelings because he's straight... well at least I think he's straight.I really don't see how love can be a choice. All of my experience have told me that when it clicks it clicks and there is nothing I can do about it except either suppressing my feelings or go for it.Falling in love, or having a crush on someone, is not a choice. However, I really think that you do have a choice to fall out of love. I've done it a few times.

Hi Lam,I believe that what you are experiencing now with that person in your class is not love.When people talk about feeling love for a person that they don't even know, or have only known for a short period of time, they demonstrate a misconception of what love is.Oftentimes, what people think is love is, in reality, a physical attraction.Crashfrog also mentioned respect for a person and having fun with a person. These, I believe, are not love at all.When a person's beliefs change, when they are not fun to be around, and when they don't look so attractive then we are in a dilemma. If these were the basis for establishing a relationship or a marriage, then our relationships will, inevitably, be fragile.I agree with 1.61803 that we choose to love. With the definition of love as an act, as I stated before, we can love anyone. We can love someone for a lifetime.When someone says, "I don't love you anymore", what they often mean is: "I don't find you attractive anymore, I don't respect you anymore, I don't find you to be much fun anymore, OR I found someone more attractive, more deserving of respect, or more fun than you".The reason we take interest in a person in the first place is, typically, because we find them physically attractive. Then, we look for other characteristics that we consider important.If we, at one time or another, found someone physically attractive, then, barring some drastic changes, we will always find them attractive. The problem sometimes is that we may find someone else more attractive. This is inevitable. There is always somebody smarter, prettier, better (in some way), than our current partner. It is when we encounter this person that our relationship/marriage is put to the test.The outcome of this test depends largely on our definition of love, our morals, religious beliefs, etc.With the definition of love as an act, which I believe I have shown to be reasonable in my first post, a statement such as: doesn't even make sense.It's not that you don't love a person anymore, you have chosen not to love that person anymore. And, you can just as easily choose to start loving that person, at any given time.

Since love is a vehicle for the propogation of the species, it basically has to be.It's possible to hold someone in great esteem, or have a great time with them. But without the sexual attraction, it's just esteem or friendship, not love.That's not to say that love is just sexual attraction, though I suspect you'll argue against my post as though that's what I meant. To deny the sexual aspect of love is to deny part of what makes love, love. I should amend my position to say that I believe its possible to choose to shield yourself from love by remaining distant to everybody; many people do this, unfortunately. But an emotionally mature, honest person who has genuine interest in other people cannot help but love some of them. They just don't get a choice about it, once they've decided to open themselves to other people. Though it happens very rarely that I encounter someone more attractive to my wife, that's the easiest "test" I face all day. Comparing my wife to other people makes about as much sense as comparing them to my leg, or my arm. My wife's a part of me, in a way; that's an advanatge nobody else can even match. I won't agree that love is an act, because I don't believe that it is - and the majority of recorded human experience seems to back me up - but certainly there's a participatory component to interpersonal relationships. You can choose to cut yourself off from people, for sure. In that sense, you can resist love - as well as any other human connection. But you can't turn it on if it's not there; at best, you can make deep personal connections and see if love occurs. It's possible that two persons may never love each other, no matter what.