In the days of old, marriages were often arranged in the name of power and royalty.
In the days of old, but much more recent, it was wrong to have a baby without being married first -- enter shotgun weddings.
These days, the naïve viewpoint is that people have relationships or get married in the name of pure love. But is this really the case, or is it based on so much more than that?
For instance, I am very close to somebody who swore by the gods he was in love with this girl, she was his soulmate, but there was one problem -- she was already with somebody else, who she'd been with for ten years, and just didn't have the guts to break it off with him, so my good friend started to pursue a girl as a means of distraction.
This other girl was introduced to him by a friend of his. This new girl, had absolutely nothing in common with my good friend, and no spark or "chemistry" occurred when they met, and even after they had gotten to know one another. He even asked me one day, "Why is it so hard to converse with her?" And this wasn't based on shyness or anxiety which often comes along with an initial attraction to somebody, this stems from the fact that he knowingly was not attracted to this new girl, but he continued to pursue her anyway because a distraction was much better than thinking about the girl he was truly in love with, but couldn't be with. I understand that, and I'm sure many have been through a situation along those lines.
Anyway, they began a relationship, and after three months decided to rent a house together. Add a few more months and they planned to buy and build a house. While they say that they love each other, I just don't see it.
Perhaps they grew to love one another, but love is something that you just know it when you see it, even observing two people from afar. And those two just don't fit the shoe, so to speak. In fact most of their life and conversations with one another revolve around 1. Finances and 2. The management of finances, as my friend is a working pawn in the FIFO mining craze, and she is a secretary at a doctor's surgery.
Of course this is just my opinion, who am I to say they don't love each other? Let me be clear on that part before somebody else decides to pipe up and be a smart-a$$ about it 
The question is, going by your personal experiences, do you believe that an emotional based love is real, and that it exists when it comes to a union/relationship, and if so, is it common or rare?
Can it be true that a lot of relationships are based on finances or survival?

how do you define LOVE.? impossible....

I have a question for you.. you claim he LOVES someone he cannot have...

how is that love?..have they had a clandestine relationship?.. or is it worship from afar..some people believe they are in love with a picture..

look at stalkers... ye gods..

relationships are based on many many things... if two people can work together respect each other there isnt anything wrong with that relationship...not every one marries for LOVE..in a perfect world yes they would...just to have that moment .

some dont realise how much they did love that person until they lose them..

dont forget this soulmate talk is all new jargon....

he has moved on.. thats a good thing...

What do you call a...

Smart Man + Smart Woman = Romance
Smart Man + Dumb Woman = Affair
Dumb Man + Smart Woman = Marriage
Dumb Man + Dumb Woman = Pregnant

I find that most couples - married or in unmarried "relationships" - aren't really in love. Very few couples are in a real love-marriage, whereas the the love was natural from the beginning, sealed with a commitment for life. More often than not the women are effectively prostituted to a single permanent customer...and the men are enslaved in their jobs...

oops 

What are you oopsing about, wise one? 

Yes, a relationship is certainly a trap in that regard. It makes you blind. 

I am happy to be single, it means I get to keep my brain.

Freedumb wrote on Sep 6^th, 2014 at 12:19am:


That's the problem with people today when it comes to "love." They want immediate "chemistry."

It's not that "love" can't involve chemistry. It's just that people think they need the drug-like high that hits them like a hammer. The feeling of being "loved," doesn't have to be something that hits you in a short period of time. It could develop over a longer period of time as you get to know each other and make sacrifices for each other.

If a woman cooked for me every day and my success in life depended on those meals she cooked for me, I would develop feelings of attachment toward her over time, probably even if she was ugly. The idea of someone making sacrifices for me every day is like a hole I am in danger of falling into. It's the idea that your life depends on someone else and that there is nothing you can do about it. You are trapped in this state of dependence and it scares you because it makes you feel vulnerable.

It's not the feeling that hits you like a hammer and gives you a drug-like high that I would regard as "love," but rather the little things you allow someone to do for you over a much longer period of time (possibly a whole decade or lifetime) that I would regard as love.

Love is like a plant. It takes time to grow. I think people who think of it as like a drug you can inject into your blood like a syringe (speaking metaphorically), that if you just don't feel it, that it isn't love, have got it all wrong.

Freedumb wrote on Sep 6^th, 2014 at 12:19am:


I think that's precisely the problem with today's generation and its concept of love. It's about "liking" someone, not about caring for them. If even one person cares for the other, that is love. It's not a question of whether they have chemistry or whether they are attracted to or like each other. The "love" is in the "caring," because when someone cares about you, you can't help being drawn to them.

In the old days, if someone saved your life, you owed them your own.

Freedumb wrote on Sep 6^th, 2014 at 12:19am:


Human emotions are so unstable, if relationships depended on them, they wouldn't last. Human emotions are just a series of neural signals in your brain sustained by hormones. It is part electrical and part chemical. Once the hormones stop flowing, the neural signals representing those emotions will slowly die and disappear.

I think "love" should depend on what you "do" for another person rather than how you "feel." Referring back to that example about a woman cooking meals for me every day, the dedication and devotion that the act demonstrates would make me feel "loved." How that woman actually feels about the favours she does for me is actually irrelevant. For her, it might just be a monotonous chore. It's how I feel about the act that is important. The "love" is in the act, not the feelings you have independent of what others do. The love is in what do you and how you make others feel, not how you feel personally. The love comes from someone else. It is not in you.

Life is a series of continuous rituals that must be repeated over and over again and there is no reason why "love" can't be "ritualistic." There may be some emotion behind these rituals, but emotion is not enough. It is not enough to just feel. We must also act. Our emotions will cease without something to sustain them, so there must be some external stimulus to keep them going. "Ritual" and "emotion" must work together to create "love."

Freedumb wrote on Sep 6^th, 2014 at 12:19am:


Survival and vulnerability is one way to win (and maybe keep) someone's heart. Put yourself or allow yourself to be put in a situation where you're vulnerable, in danger and need to be rescued or a situation where you need to be "loved" and "cared for" and you will naturally be drawn to the person who comes to your aid.

That's how affairs start! Two people find themselves with mutual needs. If you have everything you need and always feel safe, you probably won't develop an attraction for anyone because you don't need anyone.