Someone asked me today whether if I was ever really in love? Thing is, I never make my emotions go that far. No girl has ever showed interest in me so I never felt the need to feed an emotion that would lead to nothing or worse yet disappointment. But now I'm beginning to wonder. Do (normal) people just fall in love regardless? Is this something that happens or am I really living inside a mental wall?My question: Do you genuinely need hope to fall in love?
Oh come on, someone answer me.
I'm monitoring this thread
>>35004310Well, I think that love and crushes are fundamentally two different things. As of late I've been able to tell one of my woman friends that I've developed feelings for her despite me knowing she will never reciprocate, but I wouldn't call that love because love between two people isn't one-sided like that. So I've never resulted to say "I love/think I love you" because fundamentally that does not fit at least my definition of love.Your questions:>Do people just fall in love regardless?I think a lot of people don't ever actually see true love, they go through the motions of attraction. Big reason why divorce rates are so high, at least in the United States. I also think men get extremely exploited by their own feelings and usually settle for someone who isn't actually someone they want to be around.>is this something that happens?Attraction definitely happens, that's why having a close friend of the opposite sex for straight men only to develop other feelings is such a canon event.>do you genuinely need hope to fall in love?No, purely because when it happens it generates the hope. This deserves an entire response but I am running out of space in this one post.
>>35005294Follow up to last question in relation to hope.The general landscape, at least for men, is that it is next to hopeless to find love when you've been told pretty much your whole life that attraction is inappropriate. It's coupled with my general idea that for most of existence, men use love to find hope or to find purpose. When I was growing up, it was so different (2000s) to when my dad grew up (1960s) that my lack of ever stating that I had crushes equated to my dad asking me if I was gay (he also said "and that's okay!" afterwards). What a mess it is to even be put in that scenario.There's a lot of hopeless men out there. I think some result to questioning their gender, some kill themselves, and some get vocally bitter about it. We've seen this same trend in other countries where the native birth rate is declining. And this is all to say that if you have the literal superhuman ability to not feel attraction, by all means run with that and run it with a sense of pride. I personally never needed hope, but when I found someone I wanted to be with- it'd generate hope. The most physically fit and optimistic I'd ever been was directly out of high school where I started talking to a crush daily and I ran a few miles every day that summer just to be in good shape for her. I've never found the strength to do that again just for myself.
>>35005294>>35005342Thanks for your generous response, I appreciate it!
