Is it love?
We assume that everyone shares the same definition of love. We assume that everyone who says ‘I love you’ means the same thing. But sometimes ‘love’ has nothing to do with what is really felt. Sometimes it is code for something else entirely. Sometimes ‘I love you’ means:
· I am lonely.
·I want you to love, adore, and worship me like a god, or:
·I am the star and I want you to be my fan.
·You are supposed to take whatever I dish out and idolize me no matter what.
·I want you to be my servant.
·I have chosen you to be my surrogate mother/father and care for me as though I was your child.
·I want to be your surrogate parent and treat you like a child.
· You are the one I have chosen to dominate, manipulate and control so that I feel powerful.
·I am in love with the idea of love and the object (you) is immaterial or accidental. I could just as easily ‘love’ a replacement.
·I want you to be my punching bag.
·I want you to be my meal ticket.
·I want you to ‘complete’ me and make me feel whole.
·You are my escape route – from family, loneliness, a boring job, etc.
·I want you to bring my fantasies of romance/love/sex/living happily ever after, to life.
·I am supposed to love someone – all my friends are in relationships, I feel left out and I’m getting older - so I have convinced myself I love you.
·It’s time I settled down and had children.
·I’m desperate for a child and need a father/mother for it.
·I’m gay but can’t admit it so I need you for a decoy.
·The word love is a deliberate lie, bait to extract something from you – sex, money, devotion, etc.
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I love you now, today, but who knows how I’ll feel tomorrow.
·I have low self-esteem but I’ll make you feel special if you make me feel special.
·I feel something (lust, attraction, affection, fondness, friendship) but I’ve confused it with love.
· I want to use you to make my ex jealous.
· You are a ‘trophy’ and I want to use you to show off and boost my self-esteem.
· I have an obsessive-compulsive personality and have become fixated on you – I am a potential stalker.
As Eric Fromm puts it in ‘The Art of Loving’, love is not just a pleasant sensation. It is about giving not receiving. The basic elements of love are care, responsibility, humility, faith, responsiveness, respect, and knowledge (of the lover and ourselves). Love is an active concern for the wellbeing, happiness, and growth of the loved one. The main condition for love according to Fromm, is to overcome our own narcissism. So when you hear those words ‘I love you’, or say them yourself, consider what lies behind them – Fromm’s definition, or something else?
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