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Fading Away
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0 posted 2001-12-09 02:00 PM


I was watching Little Women this morning, to pass some time.  (yes - an oldie, but a very goodie).  And I realized just today, after watching it hundreds of times, that Amy states:

"It [love] isn't like getting stuck with the dreadful nose you get.  One does have a choice to whom one loves."

What do you think about this? Agree or disagree?  Why?

© Copyright 2001 Jennifer Floyd - All Rights Reserved
Poet deVine
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1 posted 2001-12-09 02:36 PM


Completely and utterly disagree. When the heart is involved, the head cannot make a decision like that. And really, to have it the other way doesn't seem romantic.
Ron
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2 posted 2001-12-09 03:33 PM


I don't think one can ever choose whom to love, nor do I think that's what the author necessarily meant. One can, however, choose whom NOT to love.

No, you can't just "turn off" love. But unless you believe in instant love (I don't), you can choose to not pursue a relationship that obviously isn't going to be good for you. I see far too many people move from one bad relationship to the next bad relationship, getting involved with the same type of person over and over. Different names, different faces, same doomed type.

If you walk into the grocery store when you're hungry, everything in sight looks delicious. Even the stuff you know isn't good for you. Smart shoppers know they shouldn't let themselves get too hungry, and they know they should make a list before ever walking into the store. If you don't know what you want, out of a grocery store or out of a relationship, you're probably not going to be real happy when you leave the checkout line.

What you should include on your list is another thread entirely.  

SEA
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with you
3 posted 2001-12-09 04:21 PM


I think you can choose to love someone, or shut your heart off and not "allow" it to happen. But I think when you love someone, you just do, and I try not to force nor deny my feelings. I do however choose to keep some feelings hidden.  
Poet deVine
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4 posted 2001-12-09 04:47 PM


And now I agree with SEA. I can love someone and because it's not right for HIM, he'll never know, I'll keep it hidden. So I guess it's a matter of choice on my part.
catalinamoon
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5 posted 2001-12-09 05:24 PM


I don't think it is always a concious choice.
Sometimes it can be controlled, when you see a situation that would not be for the best, but sometiems you just cannot stop yourself from loving someone.
My experience anyway.
Sandra

Bec
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6 posted 2001-12-09 05:36 PM


Funny this should be a discussion topic! The first time I ever saw my boyfriend, I honestly thought that I could never date someone like him. Now here I am four and a half years later, still with him! (And don't you dare tell him I said that!!  )

Bec  

Poet deVine
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7 posted 2001-12-09 05:46 PM


Is this question different for 'real' life as opposed to cyber-life?
Brad
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8 posted 2001-12-09 06:32 PM


If love were controllable, would that somehow demean the feeling?

It's a tricky question because love means so many things to so many people. A friend once said, "I don't know what love is, I just know the idea of hurting her kills me inside."

That was a week before his wedding.

I think we control love (our feelings) far more than most people think, and that control is intertwined with many other factors that we simply don't want to associate with love so we deny it.

For example, if say you have a 'bad boy' syndrome (or a 'bad girl' syndrome), nine times out of ten, it's the challenge that you can change him or her that motivates love, it's the hope that keeps you going.

And if you succeed in changing, there's the possibility that the feeling (love/challenge) will disappear.

Respect, authority, physical beauty, how other people see the person, self image, previous fantasies -- all these play a role
in determining love. We just don't like to think about it.

But as much as I think we control our feelings far more than people admit, I also believe we can't control it.

Love, at it's most intense, is dependent on someone else, it is, it has to be, reciprocated in order for it to be fully felt.

And that makes things extremely difficult and dangerous.

Brad

Ron
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9 posted 2001-12-09 07:12 PM


Poet deVine said:
quote:
I can love someone and because it's not right for HIM, he'll never know …


Can one human being ever make that kind of decision for another?

(I guess if you have a basement full of very cold and stiff ex-boyfriends, you can be pretty sure you're not right for him. If you do, I hereby withdraw the question.   )

Brad said:
quote:
… control is intertwined with many other factors that we simply don't want to associate with love so we deny it.


And therein lies the foolishness and, I think, much of the pain. If you don't know what pushes your buttons, you're just plain playing craps with your love life. And your future.

Like Dirty Harry said, "So, you feeling lucky today?"

More seriously, I think everyone - but especially writers - should explore and try to understand the attraction between two people (not just love). So much of what we do, both as people and certainly as writers, revolves around that seemingly simple thing. Do you know what turns you on? Or do you only think you know?

Poet deVine
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10 posted 2001-12-09 07:59 PM


Ron, I have no basement, thus no ex-boyfriends, stiff or otherwise!  

And can't we love someone enough to know that the relationship would not be good? Can't love be selfless? And if he were involved with someone else, that is especially verboten!

I know what attracts me:

humor - a twinkle in the eye and a grin does more for me than huge biceps;

creativity is a big turn on for me too - doesn't matter what kind, maybe it's that he thinks outside the box or sees something in a different way.

compassion - if a man doesn't care about others, how can I care for him?

Looks? LOL here we have it! It's odd, the last two guys I dated (that's BC btw), were balding! There is something about it that turns me on! John Malkovich syndrome I guess! And eyes - kind, gentle, smiling, wicked understanding eyes.

Everything else: age, weight, height, hair color, eye color is moot....

Mysteria
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11 posted 2001-12-10 04:24 PM


I read this thread with a lot of interest having been married three times and been involved in a lot of relationships both good and bad, I enjoyed the comments here.  It was only the other night that Nan, Elizabeth, Melissa and I were talking of these very things actually.  I have to add my two cents to all of this if I may.  I majored in psychology and used that to manipulate getting a man into my life many a time, and found that theory and the practical never mixed!  I have to disagree that you can’t choose whom you wish to love (as I have done that), and with a great deal of success I might add, and have also chosen whom not to love (with a great deal of regret).  When younger I had a standard checklist a man had to meet, and if they didn’t – well they didn’t qualify, now how darn vane is that?  Being older now I don’t’ believe in “love at first sight” anymore, that is for the young as it can just hormones running rampant.  What I do believe in now is that I see someone with qualities that I admire and hope that my respect for them will turn into a love that lasts, but that takes work!  I am well aware of what turns me on, and if they “turn me on” it is worth a shot at perusing.  That is what I think people today forget.  They have to know what they want in a partner, not just sexual, but all other aspects of that partner contributing to making them feel just a little more complete (my thoughts anyway). They should make it so easy to get divorced and hard as hell to get married and there would be more couples with 50th wedding anniversaries.  The main thing I have learned through many relationships is this, “ Love should never hurt!”  The second thing is that communication has to be open and honest.

Ron, I could not agree with you more about people moving from one bad relationship to the next, picking the same kind of person, over and over.  That is a flaw in themselves of not thinking they are worthy of any better than the same kind of toxic person they picked before.  There is an incredible book called, “Women Who Love Too Much” that explains this the best way I have ever heard and it is excellent for both sexes to read.  However, sometimes someone comes along that loves a person just they way they are, and due to their own issues with self-worth, they let a perfectly good relationship slip right through their “heart” because they don’t believe it will work, and they didn’t even take a risk at trying, now to me that is sad.

I loved the analogy to the grocery store, now how true is that?  To take it even a step further, if people would put as much thought into what they really want out of a partner as they do their home stereo system, maybe then we would hear about happily marriages or relationships more often.  My daughter in law waited four years to “trap” my son as she knew what she wanted, and finally after being together another 9 years, they only got married at his asking, when my first granddaughter was born, and now have been happily married for 14 years.  I have to tell you the funniest part…they got married in the Caribbean and Brenda tore her Achilles tendon a week before they were to leave, and my son wanted to postpone it.  She insisted on going as she said she had waited all these years and if she had to crawl there to get married that is what she would do – LOL!

Sharon, some of the very things you mentioned I heard from Nan and Mel, the same exact words as to what they wanted in a man and a relationship.  It seems you all want that “twinkle in the eye” and that integrity and compassion in a man, more than esthetics.  I can remember the days when I would not even date a man unless he was 6’2” at least, and good looking, pretty shallow isn’t it?  Now, like you, Nan and Mel, the comfort of their company is the most important thing to me.  I guess because I have “aged” I know the difference between instant love and being in love and know that if you have all the right things on “your grocery list”, then you have the fixings for something to make out of the ingredients that lasts, but I also know this is one instance you need, “two chefs in the kitchen”.

As a last thing, and I know this is long-winded, brother am I glad I did my research back then, as you are playing Russian Roulette these days, so I wanted to add that to the chain here, to be very, very careful as well.


~*~  May the spirit of this season live in your heart all year through ~*~


Elizabeth Santos
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12 posted 2001-12-10 05:18 PM



Sometimes life just happens, and we don't know why we fall in love. That's when I was  young and all those twinkling stars I write about are were all that mattered. As for me, I have found that at my age love means something very deep, It means companionship, soulmate, comfort with just being in the presence of the other, laughing and crying together (can't do that with just anyone), and sharing a real passion for life, experiencing minute magnificence together, and those who truly communicate are the lucky ones. But most of all love is TRUST. without trust in yourself or in another, it cannot be whole.  Now I am 58 years old, and I have found love, unlike any other, I am more content in heart and spirit than ever before. Funny thing, it is someone I passed up when I was young. But you know, sometimes life just happens.
Liz

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13 posted 2001-12-10 11:46 PM


I read this topic a couple of days ago and couldnt really write down how I felt about it but  Mysteria you took the words right out of my brain.  Must be the psychology major and the wisdom that comes with age even though i truly believe this and im just a kid.  I think you can definately choose who you give your Love to.<~~~ my opinion  
Sunshine
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14 posted 2001-12-11 08:22 AM


Brad said:
quote:
Love, at it's most intense, is dependent on someone else, it is, it has to be, reciprocated in order for it to be fully felt.


We just "can't" let love smack us in the face, right?

But it can.  And oftentimes does, even when we're not looking.  It's knowing that the "smack" is not just chemistry walking, and that there should still be something "magic" about the relationship when the fizzle dies down.  

Really?

For a number of couples, life takes that fizzle's sizzle and drowns it in the well of living.  Some couples are perverse at letting go, so struggle on, either for monetary reasons, kid reasons, or for pure stubbornness [I made my bed, I'll lay in it!].  We forget, or we misplace, the reasons why we got together in the first place.  We forget to court each other.  

Ok, I'm simple, I admit it.  I want to be courted, I want the person who loves me to accept the courting I give him.  I want to remind him of why I love him. It doesn't have to be every day.  But it shouldn't be held to February 14.  But, No One "owes" me the same back.  I want to give love, I would hope the person who is the recipient wants to give it back.  

Ron said:
quote:
More seriously, I think everyone - but especially writers - should explore and try to understand the attraction between two people (not just love). So much of what we do, both as people and certainly as writers, revolves around that seemingly simple thing. Do you know what turns you on? Or do you only think you know?


Do we, as writers, expect too much?  Do we explore the unknown, hoping to justify what we put forth in writing, and have it suit all needs?  Do we pour our heart out on paper, then, when questioned about "why or how, or for whom" we wrote as we did, find some way to merely say, "I was only expressing myself."  Or, "I was only trying to see if I could get someone else to be moved."  How might a successful writer detach their self without actually having felt love, if not in the current time, at some time in the past?

I have to agree with Ron,  , you certainly don’t want to go shopping on an empty heart!

And Mysteria?  I don't think you're vain any more...and I have it on the best authority!  

Janet Marie
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15 posted 2001-12-11 12:48 PM


Ron said:

"One can, however, choose whom NOT to love.
======================================

One could make those kind of choices IF they were emotionally strong and secure. IF they werent so in need of love or anything that felt remotely like it. Then we wouldnt see the patterns we are discussing here...but unfortunatly loneliness can be the controling factor in one being able or NOT being able to make that kind of choice.
-----------------------

Ron said:  

"No, you can't just "turn off" love. But unless you believe in instant love (I don't), you can choose to not pursue a relationship that obviously isn't going to be good for you. I see far too many people move from one bad relationship to the next bad relationship, getting involved with the same type of person over and over. Different names, different faces, same doomed type."
=========================================

I agree with you on the pattern...we see it all the time...even in here..but I just dont think its that easy for some to be able to walk away from something even when they KNOW they will get hurt...
I think if it was..."Oprah and Dr. Phil" would be out of business.
But its good advice for sure...and I want to schedual my next session with Dr. Ron  
and Mysteria....funny you should mention that book...I just saw it yesterday in Borders ... NEXT to DR PHIL's book  
======================

Brad said:

"Love, at it's most intense, is dependent on someone else, it is, it has to be, reciprocated in order for it to be fully felt."
==================================

Not if your a moth  
(and with that I best hush before Sun turns on the bug light.*L*
later-you-give-good-advice-gators.
mothy me

Moon Dust
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16 posted 2001-12-11 08:54 PM


Aright you can't choose who you fall in love with, but you can choose who to love. Beacuse I had to choose who I wanted to love and in some cases I've had to because I fell in love with two people at the same time.

You need to choose who you live with or spend the rest of your life. But your not going to do that with every person you fall in love.

The real question is could you meet someone you could be entirely comfortable with, your intellectual equal and where your personsalites matched.

I breathe the dust, the dust is me.


Brad
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17 posted 2001-12-11 10:24 PM


Sunshine said:

"Ok, I'm simple, I admit it.  I want to be courted, I want the person who loves me to accept the courting I give him.  I want to remind him of why I love him. It doesn't have to be every day.  But it shouldn't be held to February 14.  But, No One "owes" me the same back.  I want to give love, I would hope the person who is the recipient wants to give it back."

--At first, I thought you were disagreeing with me, but this statement shows that we agree. If someone feels obligated in the sense you mean, wouldn't that mean that the relationship wasn't reciprocal?

--As for the rest, are we talking about the same thing?

Brad

PS I think that Elizabeth's point:

"Sometimes life just happens, and we don't know why we fall in love"

is valid when you're in love. But I would say that it doesn't matter why you fall in love when you're in love.  

[This message has been edited by Brad (edited 12-11-2001).]

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