What is Love (taken from an article)

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-16-2003
What is Love (taken from an article)
Wed, 08-24-2005 - 6:42am


I had been wanting to share this with everyone the moment I had come across this. It really touched me. When I read moxie's post on this board(one before mine) it prompted me to go right ahead.

The single, lady author is talking with her father...

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he told me calmly that to him, love is a choice. “You have to make a decision every day of your life to stay with that person, through good or bad, even if you don’t feel like you love them anymore...because you’re not always going to. Sometimes, you won’t even like them...but for me, it was worth it”.

It was then that the light came on, I realised he was right. The difference between love and like, to me, is this: Love is a commitment that you make. Like isn’t secondary to love, in fact, like is essential to love.

You like hanging out with someone, spending time with them, you like what they wear, how they do their hair, the little wrinkle they get between their eyes when they’re mad, or they way they curl their lip when trying not to laugh. But like can be fickle. It is based on mere feelings, and no real intention. It’s easy to say goodbye to someone you simply like – because you believe there are others out there just like or better than them.

Herein lies the difference between like and love.

Love is choosing to be with someone – as one wise friend said, and forsaking all others. Love is seeing someone for who they are, baggage, bad hair and all, and still being able to look them in the eye and say: “I love you”. Love is acceptance, understanding, patience, friendship, endurance...all those things that sound so boring when you’re 18 and horny but that suddenly becomes so important when you come ‘of age’.

How do you know whether you love someone or just really like them? Ask yourself this – if they were involved in a terrible car accident tomorrow and became crippled, would you stay with them? If your answer is a sincere yes from the heart, then congratulations, you’re in love.

If it’s no, then you’re not...and that’s ok too – you might just need more time. I will tell you why this answer is so important – love means compromise, caring about the welfare of the other person as much as your own.

Love requires trust – and the most basic foundation of trust in a relationship is knowing that your partner will not leave you, no matter what happens. There are always going to be others more attractive, more intelligent, maybe even more compatible, others that you are attracted to. But love means you’ve committed to a choice and you need to follow through and see where it takes you.

This is why most people who have been in love say it takes time. The true test of love lies in what happens after infatuation fades and passion settles.

True love does exist. And it isn’t boring, or scary or impossible to find. It’s out there – if you’re brave enough to look, and strong enough to let yourself fall.

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Whew! always gets tears in my eyes everytime I read it.