Love Vs. In Love

Any girls want to help answer this? I'm curious about when females "girl talk" and use the terms "love" and "in love". How do most of you ladies define the two terms?

This thread should have been titled "NON-INTERCOURSE POLL FOR THE LADIES."

I agree.

The two are interchangable for me, although I know that's not true for everybody. I just prefer not to cloud the issue. Either the word love applies or it doesn't.

I'll need to develop a pretty thorough profile of the female mind if I want to successfully build a well-rounded girl robot.

You don't need to build one; you just need to pay to reactivate her account.

Meh, I think there is a difference between "loving" someone and being "in love". This is just me though.

For example, I love my mom, but I am in love with my boyfriend. Yeah...if that makes sense.

Agreed 100%.

That was just an example! I shall rephrase, "You can love your mom, but be in love with your boyfriend/girlfriend/robot etc."

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

To me love is a more passive thing, I can still love someone that I haven't seen in years.
In love is more about the current moment.

I love cheese, but I'm not in love with it.

Love is such a nebulous term as it is.

Half the time, I'm convinced people use it because they're too lazy to actually put their feelings into clear, distinct words.

I'm going to answer for my girlfriend, and then answer for myself.

Her definition of In love with me, is that she desires for me to be a daily part of her life... which would include the desires for all forms of intimacy. It also includes the New Relationship Energy.

We both feel that most women and men view just the Lust/NRE as being "In Love with", and they most often never feel the need to work on the more permanent unconditional love which is required for long term relationships. Thus most women once the NRE dies out assume that there is nothing to stick around for and leave saying the quote "I love you, but I'm not 'In love' with you".

I personally view Love as the uncondtional Love felt between friends/children/parents, and the other desires as seperate emotions entirely... sometimes effecting Love, but not always... for example.

I love H, my girlfriend and I'll likely come to love her husband. My trust and unconditional acceptance of the two of them will be the same... though I only feel lust and intimacy with H. It doesn't mean that the love I will feel for the two of them will be any different, with the exception of the fact that I am not interested in sexual relations with her husband.

Sadly people are still under the impression that Love can be jealous or untrusting or selfish... the would would be a hell of a lot better off if society just grew up a little bit.

I like this answer,
thanks

yes,
Good Answer

Good vivid answer. Like the wanton description.
Thanks.

Now that's what i call love.

So, two girls I used to date loved kissing and banging me. They even said they loved me, but weren't in love. I guess that there ought to be a middleground term. Like Infatuation? Or Love-Crush? haha
What do ya think?

well..... you love your friends and you love your family, and in the first month or so of a relationship (ie honeymoon period) you love your boy/girlfriend. then you get intot he comfortable stage where you dont feel the need to fuck each others brains out every second of every day. then.....BANG!!!! suddanly this person is the most important person in your life and you cant get enough of them!!! true love is fucking on the kitchen table and not caring that the window is open!

I would say that's poor impulse control, or exhibitionism, or a lack of concern about the opinions of others. Now, it's possible that true love could inspire all three of those things, but so can casual lust (or, you know, you could just naturally be an unconcerned, undisciplined pervert). If I want someone enough to bang 'em, I'd be plenty willing to bang 'em with the window open, regardless.

nah, i can control my impulses.....sometimes.......on occasions.......when the mood takes me.......on wednessdays......perhaps........if its a gibbious moon........ at 3am............if there's no hot punk guys around.............if you're lucky.........

Well I was was reading 'Pamela' by Samuel Richardson for my lit course and I thought it helped me to shed light on my own distinctions between the two. Pamela declares her love for the oppressive Mr. B by delcaring: 'I love him with all the passion of a mistress and all the tenderness of a wife' or some-such wording.

Anyway, that's how I've always separated the two. To me, anyway, 'love' is a kind of warm, caring tenderness and concern for an individual. Being 'in love' is feeling that rush of emotions and physical need that necessitates you to be near that person right now, dammit! It's an emotional hunger that can only be satiated by one particular individual.

(Just wanna add, I don't mean by that quote that wives can't be in love with their husbands or any such absurd notion! I just found it to be a good personifying quote to distinguish the two)

Maybe I'm overly-romantic or something, but the whole "love vs in love" idea makes me sad. To me that seems to put a lot of restrictions on something that isn't supposed to be restricted. I do not beleive that people fall in and out of love- it's something that has to grow and develop, because otherwise it's just infatuation. Can you become completely infatuated with someone to the point of mania and then grow to love them just as maniacally? Of course.

I also don't beleive that you 'stop' loving someone when a breakup occurs. If you truly loved them, that feeling does not go away. If you try to "fall out" of love you're putting conditions on something that is supposed to be unconditional. I still deeply love two of my ex-boyfriends, because they are still wonderful people, even if we weren't compatible in the long run. It was a matter of loving them enough to be able to let go. This will also not prevent me from growing to love another person, or people. Hell, I'd say this is one of those rare cases where the more you give, the more you have.

In closing: You either grow to love someone or your don't. "In love" = Lust in my book. If that were the case, I'd have been "In love" with all my fuck buddies! (Although honestly there are two of them that I do love very much, I just don't want to have a relationship with either of them. Does that make me weird?) I am done waxing all sorts of frilly romantic nonsense now.

Hey, great minds do think alike.