Zoosk Dating Community

[Juliet the Moderator]

Have you ever heard the phrase “I’m in love with the idea of being in love”? This phrase relates to a real phenomenon. Many of us, your author included, have at one time or another been in love with the idea of love.

It is actually quite easy to be seduced by a concept. And love is a seductive concept. Our literary and artistic culture is riddled with hyperbolic, overwrought, and unattainable descriptions of what love means. The way love is described in famous novels is so exaggerated, it becomes almost absurd. In Goethe’s famous novel, Sorrows of Young Werther, the main protagonist actually takes his own life because the woman he loves doesn’t love him back. When the novel was published in 1774, it inspired a wave of “Werther fever” as young men throughout Europe began dressing in the style of the main character as described in the book. This “Werther fever” even lead to many copycat suicides as readers actually took their own lives, like Werther did, when confronted with unrequited love. This example shows how susceptible we are to ideas of love, even when these ideas in no way resembles the real thing.

Love shouldn’t drive you to die. It should give you a reason to live. And yet if you were to read The Sorrows of Young Werther or Romeo and Juliet or Wuthering Heights, you’d think love and suffering were one and the same, that you couldn’t fully love someone without suffering great pain and loss. Even cinema reflects this strange comparison of love and suffering. Just look at movies like Titanic or Gone with the Wind or Moulin Rouge or Casablanca. Even though the two main characters in all these movies are separated by the film’s end, even though we’re deprived as an audience of a happy ending, we blissfully watch these movies and use them as actual examples of “true love”. Would these movies have been as romantic had the characters gotten together and lived happily ever after? I doubt it. I certainly wouldn’t have cried so hard at the end of Casablanca had Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman flown off together in a plane to get married and settle down. We love their story because it ends in loss.

These stories that we tell ourselves are beautiful and enjoyable, but it’s important to realize that they’re just stories. They’re a work of fiction that represent an idea that has little bearing in real life. Real love is far from the idea of love. Real love isn’t always exciting; it’s actually frequently boring. Unlike these dramatic stories and movies that operate by a series of ups and downs, high highs and low lows, mystery and intensity, unexpected twists and turns, the real thing is actually far from turbulent. Real love, the kind that sustains over time and contributes to ones life in a positive way, is actually really stable. And when you love someone, you don’t expect them to be like heroes or heroines in plays, movies, or novels. You accept them as real people with real personalities. People are not ideas, and if you like someone because they symbolize or represent something to you, you’re in for a disappointment. No one can live up to your ideas, because those ideas aren’t theirs but yours, and as such, when you love your ideas, you aren’t in love with anyone else; you’re actually in love with yourself. You’re in love with a figment of your own imagination.

So next time you tell someone that you like your guy because he reminds you of someone else or that your gal is great because she represents an attractive ideal, think long and hard about whether you’re actually in love or just infatuated with the idea of love. These things are distinct and highly incompatible, and to think they are one and the same is to accept a delusion that can only lead to disappointment.

Real love sustains and leads to happiness. So wouldn’t you rather go for the real thing?

[DrZiz]

I think in general, especially women, love the idea of being in love. Many people convince themselves that without being in love or having that someone - life is meaningless. So they convince their entire state of existence into a misery state because "they are unhappy because they are alone".

I recently had such conversations with two women. Same story. "I want to be with someone". Why? I asked. Because I'm lonely. I told them - find a hobby or get a pet.

See you don't find someone because you are lonely. Why? Because its for the wrong reason! And if your entire premise for falling in love is wrong - is the love really true ? Think about it. Almost all people around you and me, want to find someone because they (and society) has deemed them to oblivion if they are alone. So its practically herd mentality where people are getting into situations of love without the right reasons.

And they wonder why then relationships don't last. Your entire premise for the relationship is fake, false and wrong!

So yes, most people love the romantic idea of being in love. Books sell on it, musicians make money of it, poets get laid on it and most of Hollywood buys and sells it like a stock market.

People like the notion of "happily ever after", prince charming, knight of honour and all that. Its an escapism from reality of a cruel world. Look around the profiles, you'll find women who want to be treated like princesses and well, boys, don't even get me started on your profiles...

At the end of the day, if you want a full and rich life, you should make attempts to make it rich yourself. Waiting for that someone to turn up just so your life will be colourful is foolish at best.

Lonely ? Buy a kitten.

AK

[Lyndsey]

i couldn't of put it better myself. your absolutely right xx

[Cruxfighter]

I appreciated 'Falling in Love With the Idea of Being in Love.' Most people, I am sure, have this idea that 'love will conquer "EVERYTHING." I guess what people really need to realize is that maybe, as it isn't always as happy as we idolize, it should be extended to mean conquering having to live with some of the imperfections of love.

[equcoe]

now if only men as a whole: Gay, Bi, Straight could be told that

seems men sometimes forget that Love is as important as Lust

now since I am attuned with my feelings,

i know what i am looking for

some guys

just aren't ready for knowing what it is they want

from me, or themselves

~^*^~

i just know that i like a man who is sure enough to be himself, through & through

he doesn't have to be sensitive~<3

just have that inner confidence that shines outward

i can tell when they do!

~^*^~

it is more fun

when both people are ready to be in love

not just one person

in the relationship

[James]

Hey guys nothing wrong with the idea of being in love with love, it sets up in each of us our decision making peradiem for who we want............................you can't compare people who are out of the norm just take the bell curve and you will be alright..........................heres to love makes the world go round