...Could you tell me what it feels like? I understand familial/friendship love, I feel that towards my friends, family, and pets on a daily basis. But, I don't understand romantic love. I don't think I have ever felt it, and at times wonder if I ever wanted it. I've never been in a relationship that envolves it, but I see it everywhere, and wonder what it's like. It's not a jealous sort of thing, though I wonder that if I can't, than why is it? Regardless, some have told me it's a very difficult feeling to describe. If that's the case, I wonder if it the feeling of realization can be described.
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Spiraling through life, we see many things and learn just as much. At the end of that spiral is yet to be seen or learned.
Somebody who is better with words than I might be able to say things more clearly, but you deserve an answer from someone, so I'll do my best, seeing as nobody else has done so yet. I can describe some of what happened, and some of how it felt, but I am no poet to find always just the correct word, and what I write inevitable falls short of how it was and is.
One thing to remember is that it is unlikely that any two people experience romantic love in quite the same way; all I can give you is my experience. Another thing is that there are several components. One component is essentially the familial/friendship love that you already know (stronger, possibly, but that depends on how close you are to your family and friends). Another is what would be called infatuation, if it were the only component. A third is simple sexual attraction. Perhaps there are other, more subtle factors...
So: my experience:
In the past, you have had crushes, where for a few weeks or months somebody has seemed more attractive than anyone else you know, but such feelings die away and the person in question then seems nice enough, but not exceptionally attractive. You have had friends to whom you were sexually attracted, but the friendships have attenuated since you moved to another city. You are in your thirties now; this time, things happen differently.
You encounter somebody through common interests, and find yourselves laughing at the same things. The two of you go on talking for hours, about anything and everything, until she realizes that it is past midnight and she has to head home before the busses stop running. It felt as if you were good friends who had met again after a long absence, rather than a first meeting between strangers.
The next time you get together, much the same thing happens; this time, you and she both realize that you are attracted to the other, but you are both a bit insecure, and it is the third or fourth meeting before she kisses you, and things rapidly get more intense. In spite of a certain nervousness, it seems the most natural thing in the world to make love to her. Quite a few such meetings ensue; you find yourself looking out of your window to catch the first glimpse of her when she comes to visit.
Your job may take you to another city in a year or so. The thought of not seeing her again is almost physically painful (later, she tells you that she felt the same). There is an obvious step to take: you ask her to marry you, and she agrees. Are you in love with her? You are not certain. Is she in love with you? She doesn't think so. (The "infatuation" component is only partially present.) But you both know you want to be together, and now you can continue to enjoy each other's company, while your families plan for a wedding...
Over the next few months, your feelings for and attraction to each other grow stronger still. Now the two of you realize that you really are in love with each other. You both find that things that might otherwise irritate you about the other are either endearing or at least easily ignored. You find yourself interested in the subjects and activities that interest her, just because they are her interests; she follows your interests likewise. You have fun doing things with each other, doing things and going places neither of you would do or go alone. It is both stimulating and relaxing to be with her: you enjoy do things with her that had never even thought of doing before, and on the the other hand you relax and sleep much better when she is there to cuddle you at night. You share silly jokes with her, laugh with her; you and she make up odd nicknames for each other.
It is more than a decade now since those days, and the "infatuation" component of your love has largely faded. You can be irritated with each other upon occasion, but you cannot stay irritated: a joke or an apology, and you laugh and realize how trivial a thing it was. You occasionally have bitter arguments with each other, even saying hurtful things, but again after an hour or two you calm down , apologize, kiss and make up. Your separate interests are a bit more separate again now, but you still have fun with each other, enjoy each other's company, share foolish jokes and nicknames, finish each other's sentences. The sexual attraction is still there, if not quite as urgent. You love each other still and always. You still both find it most enjoyable and relaxing to cuddle at night, and the nicest sight in the morning is your lover's face next to you in the bed.
Is this still "romantic love"? You neither know nor care; it is more than you had expected to ever have before you met her, and you are content.
I see...as expected, I've never experienced such feelings. Regardless, thank you very much for your answer, and sharing this experience. I've begun to think that perhaps such things simply aren't meant for me; rather, I may be destined to observe. I've found that there are two ways of experiencing something...participation and observation. And, as obsessed as I am with gaining new knowledge and information, I observe so many things, relationships being one of them. How they occur, how they break, and how they grow into something beautiful. My brother believes my knowledge to be useless, as he has had several and I have had none. Yet, all of his have, normally quite tragically, crashed and burned. And he never sees that he's usually at fault for it. However, the way you put it makes it sound so much better than the majority that I've seen. I think I'm a little uplifted at that, though many more negative points regarding it remain a mystery.
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Spiraling through life, we see many things and learn just as much. At the end of that spiral is yet to be seen or learned.
Myotis wrote:I've begun to think that perhaps such things simply aren't meant for me; rather, I may be destined to observe.
It is always possible that this is true, but I would be more surprised if you did not find a chance to participate someday, if you chose to take it. Whether sooner or later (or even never) depends of course both on luck and on your own nature and actions. For my part, there were a fair number of years when I did not believe that I would ever experience any relationship, let alone a long-term one: I was shy, somewhat reclusive, and not very socially adept. I was lucky to eventually meet someone compatible, since I did little to "help out" the luck (such as seeking out places or situations where I might have met new friends).
I was also lucky that my love and I began with and maintained a strong friendship. It is certainly true, as you point out, that infatuations frequently do not lead to long-term relationships: if one lays down no basis of companionship, caring, and friendship, then when the infatuation dies away there is nothing left, even if missteps had not led to a break-up before then. Among the many things that I lacked time and space to include in my account were some incidents, mostly early on, when one or the other of us would hurt the other badly by a thoughtless word or act; cumulatively, these might have been enough to break up the relationship if we had not been able to trust each other to learn to do better. And the companionship, caring, and friendship are the most important and lasting parts of a relationship: any infatuation will have died away after a few months to a few years at most (though I understand that it sometimes rekindles), and even sex is only the icing on the cake (though a very tasty icing, to be sure... and I think I'm misquoting someone with that metaphor, probably Heinlein). I'm not sorry to have experienced a relatively strong infatuation component in the relationship for a while - it was fun while it lasted - but it is centalnly not a necessary component: good relationships can and have been built on compatibility and friendship. And infatuation can bring together (at least for a while) people who are totally incompatible, with results that can be very unpleasant.
When it comes to relationships some people, apparently including your brother, seem to have difficulty learning from their mistakes, repeating similar ones over and over (one of the most frequent such mistakes, often fostered by the media, is the trap of having excessive expectations, which in the real world can never be fulfilled). Your observations may well serve you better.
I believe I'm similar in that I'm not a social person either, though anti-social would probably be more accurate for me. It's a long story.
You are one of the few people I've encountered that is actually happy with the way your relationship has developed. My parents are divorced, myself, though I consider it to be a good thing. If they hadn't, I would more likely be dead than typing this right now. My father was a cruel, insensitive fool, and he is more than likely most of the reason I dislike so many people these days. My brother, on the other hand, is slowly becoming more like him, not caring at all what others think, never caring if his words hurt others, and thinking it's perfectly acceptable to cause serious harm to someone just because they displease him, yet acting as if they have no right to do the same. It's like he's unaware that the rest of us think and feel like he does.
All that aside, where I live, sex seems to be the ONLY reason anyone wants a relationship. The guys, anyway. Well, most, but not all. Fortunately. Pleasurable, I'm sure, but I hardly find a fleeting physical pleasure to be the greatest thing in existence. Tell them that, however, and you're pelted with a myriad of insults. I'm glad to see you aren't one of them, though.
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Spiraling through life, we see many things and learn just as much. At the end of that spiral is yet to be seen or learned.
It is certainly true that there are plenty of potential pitfalls in a relationship, and most people (including myself) have problems with at least one or two potential partners initially, which break up or prevent a relationship with them (though there are rare exceptions: one of my uncles married his childhood sweetheart and lived happily with her for nearly 50 years, until her death). One problem that can be particularly difficult to see, let along overcome, is that a child's parents are typically their first role models for how to act in a relationship, and for what a potential partner "should" be like. It appears that your brother has been caught in that trap: even if he realizes that behaving like your father is not a good thing, he has not been able to avoid falling into that role. You, on the other hamd, may have to watch out for subconscious expectations as to how a relationship works, which can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy - for example, it can be easy to see careless mistakes as deliberate slights, if that is what you expect, and then respond accordingly (not that a partner should be allowed to go on making the same careless mistakes, if they can learn better, but the appropriate response is different). Even such simple expectations as "who does which chores when you are living with someone" or "how do you handle an argument" can build up surprising amounts of resentment if the two partners have conflicting expectations and do not manage to work it out - and sometimes a complete solution is not possible, and you have to settle for "good enough" (for example, my beloved is still bothered by the fact that I tend to become quiet and find it hard to say anything when I get angry, rather than yelling at her the way her parents would, while I don't like it when she loses her temper; but we realize that we just have to accept this minor incompatibility and try to work around it - not that a yelling match would be a good way to settle an argument, but silent resentment would be no better).
As for the guys who only want sex from a relationship, well, some will grow out of that, some won't, some perhaps are merely acting that way to try to fit in with their peers (not that that helps, necessarily), and as you say there are at least a few who at least hope for something more. I was certainly much more obsessed with sex in my teens and early twenties than later on, though my shyness kept me from doing anything about it (and I would hope that, even if it had not, my belief that sex is secondary to love and caring would have kept me from being obnoxious). But while sex cannot be the only basis of a good relationship, nor (at least in my opinion) should it be the most important thing, it can still be a very important factor. With someone whom you love and care about, the best thing about sex can be knowing that you are doing something that your partner will enjoy so much, while knowing that they want to give the same pleasure to you because they love you in return. Also, sex can strengthen your feeling of connection to your partner (though the extent to which this is so varies among different individuals: everywhere from people who have only casual sex to people for whom sex can never be even close to casual). This connection can help a good relationship survive the inevitable rough spots, but it can also cause a couple to prolong a relationship that is otherwise painful or even abusive. I stand by my opinion that love, companionship, caring, and friendship must be the basis of a good and lasting relationship; but I am not trying to claim that sex has to be unimportant. (And hugs and cuddles can likewise be very important: I felt seriously deprived of them until I met my love.)
