Love is a bitch
Mingle
Veteran
Suffering is caused by desire...
And there is probably no better example of this than the desire for intimacy. We cannot escape it either and when it comes it is normally met with feelings of inadequacy.
We can give up searching for it but it finds us, it just takes the form of someone like a doctor or someone who you see on the shop.
To me my self worth is entirely tied to this. I crave intimacy so much but I know I live in a world where that is not for everyone. Maybe when I am older it won't sting so much but right now my body still craves human contact so much. I just wish I could switch off my ability to fall in love. It has only become a hindrance for me. I just don't see what is so great about it. I never feel crappier than when I am in love. I think I would be slot happier without it seriously. Films have buffed it up to be the ultimate feeling that we should all aim to enjoy and maybe for some it is. Most of the time though it is always someone unavailable, someone out of your league or just someone you shouldn't that you fall for.
When I fall in love I just say to myself "oh god now I'm gonna be miserable for weeks" and it does, I just get down, I lose my appetite I keep obsessing and keep telling myself how it can never be.
Love really really reeeeeaaaallly sucks.
Comments
Like a vacuum cleaner with all its "attachments" ...
@Mingle
Blow job?
... meanwhile ... here is someone beyond anybodies league ... Tara
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taṇhā
I never watch chick-flicks or Rom Coms. They're complete and utter bull and millions of hopeful young things fall for it hook line and sinker.
What most hopeful young things don't understand is that it doesn't stop when you have found your so-called 'soulmate' (hah!) your 'one and only'. That's not the culmination of the quest.
Finding someone and being with them, isn't the answer.
Maintenance, continuity and sheer hard work - is the answer.
It's not the culmination.
It's the beginning.
And here commenceth true love.
up until then, it's just been the idea of being in love.
Learn to distinguish one from the other, @Mingle because until you do, you're always going to think love sucks.
I think a part of the problem is a romanticised ideal about what "love" should be like, so there is a set of unrealistic expectations involved. But "love" comes in many forms.
It's a cliche, but I think there is a lot of truth to the idea that if you're not happy with yourself then you're unlikely to be happy with somebody else. And of course people who come across as "needy" are likely to drive away potential partners.
In my experience having some good friends can make a lot of difference.
No it doesn't. You're confusing love with lust/ infatuation.
Or with being in love? But yes, it can all get horribly mixed up.
Indeed.
So this is lust ...
http://www.xenodochy.org/article/arouse.html
What about love, which I am inclined to understand is very good indeed ... ?
[thus have I heard]
My apologies for not mincing words here, but I personally think it's more likely your attitude about it that sucks. If you expect it to be awful, it's going to be awful. If your overall attitude is that love sucks, then what else do you expect to find?
Even looking back on relationships that failed (some of them spectacularly) it most definitely wasn't the love that sucked. It was a lack of people knowing themselves. It was an overabundance of ego. It was a lack of understanding of expectations and how they ruin our relationships, including with ourselves. Those things sucked. But unlike what your comment suggests, we absolutely have complete control over those things.
Hey guys! After you have sorted all this out and got the Jell-O nailed to the wall, would you let me know? At 77, I haven't got a clue.
Is it that love sucks or rather our attachment to the inevitable waxing and then waning of our idealized desire of love that sucks? Attachment sucks -- isn't that a Buddhist teaching somewhere? On a related note, my partner and I just watched "Our Souls At Night," on Netflix, starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, in a twilight-of-their-lives romance that was a little less sucky than normal. At least by the time the movie drew to a close.
And who could forget the moral of the story from Wedding Singer's song, 'Love Stinks'!
Some of my favorite things suck...PM me if you need an address to send me a vacuum cleaner.
On a more serious note, I often find myself in staunch disagreement with folks who say that you can't love someone you only know online. There are people here on NB that I love - and nothing sucks about that.
Love,. Lust, Infatuation
I'm talking about that very real change in your brain that makes you feel euphoric at the very thought of being with a person and dam right depressed when you know you can't have them. It literally makes you crazy and is likened to being on a drug or under a spell. You lose interest in anyone else, lose your appetite and can even get down right ugly when life just doesn't seem worth living without them.
Then of course you snap out of it and realise that person is only human. In fact you have projected a fantasy onto them.
This was something I loves when I was younger but lately with my ever decreasing confidence with the opposite sex I have come to hate it. It's like suddenly craving cigarettes even after years of quiting and knowing you have to keep telling yourself no.
Have you considered Buddhist practice?
Yeah problems. Wanna hear mine? No? Tsk, tsk ...
You are in love with your self ... perhaps ... infatuated even ...
Yep. Best to leave it all alone I've found. Not worth the hassle.
More often than not the desire for "Love" is just "Loneliness" looking for a companion....
This desire could just come from the "fear" of being alone with oneself...
@Mingle So what brings joy to your life? I ask because thinking back to other threads you created and comments you've made, you don't seem to have much of it. Or perhaps you do and you just bring the rest of it here to work through. You seem to have a lot of negativity you are dealing with in many areas, but it doesn't have to be that way. Joy is found in contentment, and if we are always discontent then we need to start looking in other places, in the small things and the tiniest of moments. If we always think something should be different than what it is, we suffer. It's the core of Buddhism's truth about suffering.
Yeah, nah. That ain't anywhere near love.
Sorry to drag this up again but there is something I've noticed.
I find when you become infatuated to someone (as a man) it is not so much that you are attracted to them as it is feeling attractive.
I mean I'm sure deep down men want to be needed by women and it is a horrid feeling to feel that no one needs you.
I find I have seen girls I thought where cute but it is not until they give me some sign that I am appreciated as a man that the clinging start's. I start being attached to them and suddenly want more. I don't know if all men suffer this but I do.
So it's a need to be needed (by women), is this something I can fulfill myself or does it require a relationship?
Oh good grief.
The most constructive thing I can think of saying is that there's no apostrophe in 'starts'.
OP
The only person who can make you happy is you. No one else (including a wife / gf) can do it for you. it is unfair on both them and you to think that they can.
Instead of worrying about whether someone else needs you, concentrate on yourself for a while and find what brings you happiness inside.
I think you'd need to spend some time digger deeper into what it really means to be "needed" because it pretty much all comes from ego. It's not always easy to figure out, but the answers are there. We aren't meant to be "incomplete" and then "whole" when we are in a relationship. That isn't how things are supposed to work. Make yourself whole, first, and find someone who compliments you.
If you are getting super clingy and it results in women running for the hills (or, you are unhappy when you aren't clinging to someone) then its a problem you'll have to spend some time to investigate. Feeling needed isn't exactly a rare thing, but if it's causing you issues then it's not working for you.