Fun Stuff > CHATTER
Commitment
a pack of wolves:
--- Quote from: pi on 27 May 2008, 08:03 ---See, I was trying to avoid the concept of love because it seems to be an irrational emotion, or one that people have trouble defining. There was a thread on love a few years back, and I thought Tommy held his own. And, using irrational concepts in a rational discussion makes it difficult to understand or counter as you don't completely understand it.
I get that you're saying that relationships are complex, but my point was that it is possible that, in any relationship, there is room for improvement, and it might be found in another person, whom you may meet and discover this.
Are you disagreeing with the existence of such a possibility?
--- End quote ---
I can see why you didn't want to bring the concept of love into it but it's unavoidable. You can't discuss the idea of committed relationships without bringing in the reason people are so keen on them. It's difficult and complex and has an incredible number of interpretations, but that's human relationships. They aren't standardised and any reductionist approach to them will only lead to meaningless conclusions.
What I'm disagreeing with is the idea that better and worse can be quantified by any set of criteria. Is a happier relationship better? Not necessarily, you might learn more or gain more powerful experiences from a more difficult relationship. There's no specific way of working this out, and even if there is it would only be one that was applicable when looking back on a relationship not while considering a change. What I'm arguing is that you reach a certain level of happiness in some form with a relationship that I think of as love where you can no longer think in terms of better or worse. Once things reach a certain level there can only be difference. As a comparison, there are the different feelings of pleasure I get from completing a piece of writing and playing a gig. Neither is better, they're different experiences despite both being pleasure arising from artistic creation. Better and worse are no longer really meaningful terms in that context.
--- Quote from: Slick ---My housemate would argue that people desiring others while being exclusive with someone is just a perfect example of why monogamy is a bad idea. I personally stand by monogamy being just as valid a choice as polyamory for dealing with relationships, each having it's merits and appeals for certain people. I think the big thing is, just like your sexuality, not to fall into one mold by convention or default; think about your options and come to the right one for you.
--- End quote ---
This is the best thing said in this thread. The problem is the idea that there is any kind of set model applicable to everybody. My romantic relationships, my friendships, my family relationships will be different to others because they involve different people. Concepts like monogamy and polyamory should ideally be guidelines for helping people in forming the individual forms their relationships take, but instead they become idealised and immutable. People talk about monogamy as if it's the only option for anyone and vice versa for open relationships. Both seem ridiculous to me as a strict set of rules everyone should live by.
Trollstormur:
love is like, a made up emotion man, it's like a fucking marketing tactic thoughtup by the greeting card companies and jewelers to sell rings and cards and shit man it's like how they control men they made women want to get you locked down with babies and fucking car insurance and goddamn pre-preschool free your fucking mind and throw off these manmade chains that the man made, man it's like a fuckin prison that you have to ask to be let into then you gotta pay for that shit and give yourself a fuckin party to go off to fuckin sing-sing and give each other shackles to wear and share the cell and your kids are your fuckin jailers man so you gotta work at a job to get money to pay for their schooling so they can go to jail just like you
Jimmy the Squid:
I think it's a little silly to flat out deny the existence of love (note that there is a distinction between "love" and "Love"). I think this mainly because I can safely say that I love, well not a great deal of people, but I certainly love my brother, I love my girlfriend and I suppose I love my dad and my stepmum and I guess my grandma.
In regards to my girlfriend, which I suppose is the kind of love (romantic love) that we are discussing here I kind of lean towards Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love (if anyone wants to read the article pm me and I'll email it to you) which basically states that the emotion of love is made up of intimacy (defined herre as emotional closeness or just generally wanting to hang out and spend time with someone), passion (sexual desire, wanting to have sex with, enjoy having sex with) and commitment (here defined as making a decision to stay with the relationship and make reasonable attempts to preserve it; meaning that were the two parties to hit a rough patch they should both at least attempt to improve things before throwing in the towel). The idea is that romantic love exists when all three of those factors are present. If it's only intimacy and commitment then you probably have a good friendship or an ok familial relationship, passion and intimacy are fun too but not anything long term (i think most relationshisp would start out as this, it is not assumed that commitment is there from the beginning. Also this does not preclude open relationships) and passion and commitment, well I can't imagine that to be all that rewarding but it might work for some people.
I think I can safely say I love my girlfriend. And yes, while I do find other girls attractive and judging from their personalities we might get on great, maybe even better than my girlfriend and I, but that doesn't mean I'm going to ditch my girlfriend with whom I have a really good thing going on for someone with whom I might have a good thing. I guess it comes down to what you are risking because, at least in my case, were I to ditch my girlfriend for another person and it doesn't work out I'd be pretty surprised if the woman I had earlier scorned would welcome me back with open arms.
Love is difficult because it incorporates too many things (notice how I started off talking about it and then I got distracted?) and is highly context specific. For instance I loved my girlfriend in highschool despite the fact that she was and possibly still is, a horrible and terrible person for me to be with. The gift of hindsight allows me to say I love my current girlfriend much more than I did someone who was patently awful to me but I honestly can't say the emotion I felt was any different, however I am happier now then I was then which changes the whole thing. I'm happier now and so the love I feel is more worthy than the love I felt when I was miserable.
I can no longer remember what my original point was, I'm sick as a very ill dog and not focusing very well but I'm not going to waste the time I spent on this post by not posting it. Essentially what you should take from this post is that I believe in a thing called love. Just listen to the rhythm of my heart. There's a chance we could make it now, we'll be rockin' til the sun goes down. I believe in a thing called love. Ooooooh.
onewheelwizzard:
--- Quote from: Jimmy the Squid on 27 May 2008, 18:22 ---Love is difficult because it incorporates too many things (notice how I started off talking about it and then I got distracted?) and is highly context specific. For instance I loved my girlfriend in highschool despite the fact that she was and possibly still is, a horrible and terrible person for me to be with. The gift of hindsight allows me to say I love my current girlfriend much more than I did someone who was patently awful to me but I honestly can't say the emotion I felt was any different, however I am happier now then I was then which changes the whole thing. I'm happier now and so the love I feel is more worthy than the love I felt when I was miserable.
--- End quote ---
I don't know, I tend to feel as if happiness is a prerequisite for what I call "love" when i feel it. If I'm not happy I don't tend to love very well, or rather, when i am happy it allows me to feel the only kind of love I'd use the word for.
Jimmy the Squid:
It is just possible that the self destructive relationships of a teenager with depression are not the best things to base definitions of love on.
Just a thought.
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