Never been crazy in love?
  • dazed
    105
    Tried some google searches, but nothing really came up on point.

    So I figured I'd throw it in the ring here:

    I am in my late 40's and I've never been crazy, head over heels in love with anyone. You know the stuff you see in the movies, can't stop thinking about them, can't wait to see them again, and can't imagine life without them. My buddy calls falling for someone this way, getting struck by a thunderbolt. I've never been struck by a thunderbolt.

    I had crushes as a kid and teen and in my early 20's, but then never really crushed after that. I would be "into" a particular girl at school or work after that, but I wouldn't say it was even a crush, more like I really liked her look AND her vibe.

    I've dated a lot and had four serious long term relationships. I have loved all of my partners, but never been crazy in love with any of them, none of them was the thunderbolt.

    When I look at my buddies I see some of them seem to been hit by thunderbolts, but some of them haven't really.

    I guess I wonder if there are certain types of people who just don't have the capacity for thunderbolt love, (my current partner actually wonders the same thing about herself). I am an only child raised by a single Mom and generally a very independent person. I wonder sometimes if I've just developed a selfhood that doesn't leave room for the kind of dependence that would come with the thunderbolt kind of love?

    Anyone feel similar?
    dazed Options
  • 180 Proof
    14.3k
    I've dated a lot and had four serious long term relationships. I have loved all of my partners, but never been crazy in love with any of them, none of them was the thunderbolt. — dazed
    This is me too. By my early/mid-thirties I'd come to seek only casual relationships realizing that I was more consistently 'happy' single than when I was with a 'love partner'. A sapiosexual swinger aka "confirmed bachelor" by forty. In hindsight, it feels to me, now in my late fifties, that there was once a window of "crazy in love" which had opened in adolescence and closed two decades or so ago without that "thunderbolt" ever striking me (down? blind? out?), and I've never felt a loss – that I'm missing out – loving without being "crazy in love". The closest I've come to bingeing on this sweet madness, I think, are unrequited loves – I'm not ashamed to admit I've had much more than my share – who have been casual partners or friends, lovers / wives of others or near strangers. Unrequited love, the sad fierce slowburn of it (or sudden heartbreak), is about as "crazy" as I've ever gotten. Maybe because friendship has always been the most fulfilling, significant form of love for me as long as I can remember; perhaps "my heart", so to speak, has never been "open" to more (with or without "benefits"). I'm happy enough for occasional bouts "crazy in lust" and the blues I get that follows whenever she or I inevitably moves on, as they say, after a spell. Heat lightning without "thunder" shaking my nights.
    180 Proof Options
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    I've dated a lot and had four serious long term relationships. I have loved all of my partners, but never been crazy in love with any of them, none of them was the thunderbolt.
    — dazed
    This is me too. By my early/mid-thirties I'd come to seek only casual relationships realizing that I was more consistently 'happy' single than when I was with a 'love partner'. Serial (sapiosexual) monogamist aka "confirmed bachelor" by forty.     — 180 Proof

    How long is a string?

    How long can a love affair be that is termed "long term" but last a fraction of the time of the average marriage?

    Love is an elusive concept, and in practice even more elusive. It is as universal as a love song, and as particular and individualistic as a person's preference to food, clothing, job, hobbies and vacations, all combined.

    Crazy love is possible, but its probability diminishes with age. And if you taste the sweet fruit of promiscuity, you are in a bind as to how to settle down.

    I was in a long term relationship for 26 years, but it was punctuated with intermittent bouts of promiscuity. And now for my old age -- I'm 34 y.o.a. now -- I've finally settled down wiht a woman. We've been steadily dating for five years, in total loyalty and marital fidelity.

    Is it good? It's the sweetest thing. Do I miss promiscuity? You bet I do. I practice the wisdom of the ninteen eighties or nineties, though. The particular pearl of wisdom has a name: The Rockefeller syndrome. It goes like this: Never do anything that you would not want to be caught doing dead. Rockefeller was a prominent politician, I think he had ran for the POTUS, and he had a wife who had lost both her breasts to mammarian cancer. Then Mr. Rockefeller was found dead when he was making out with a prostitute.
    god must be atheist Options
  • James Riley
    2.9k
    I was. Some adults called it "puppy love." But it was every bit as real as any other love I have experienced, and it was as, or more compelling in it's own way. However, time heals all wounds, if you let it. Other loves have shown me that I'm glad I did not get what I prayed for. I would have "stalled". We would have had a Bonny and Clyde thing goin on. Or just stalled. My soul mate is the Earth.
    James Riley Options
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Love, I learned the hard way, doesn't pay the bills.
    TheMadFool Options
  • SatmBopd
    91
    Hmm. Well if soul mates exist, maybe some of us just don't happen to meet them.
    SatmBopd Options
  • 180 Proof
    14.3k
    "Soulmates" betray, domestically violate and divorce each other every day.
    180 Proof Options
  • baker
    5.6k
    ↪dazed
    What's the significance of putting this thread in General Philosophy?
    baker Options
  • Yohan
    679
    ↪dazed What's the significance of putting this thread in General Philosophy? — baker
    Maybe I can help make the topic more philosophical.
    Is love really a form of going crazy? Or, is love an altered state of consciousness?
    If everyone were rational, would there be no love in society?
    Yohan Options
  • James Riley
    2.9k
    "Soulmates" betray, domestically violate and divorce each other every day. — 180 Proof

    The quotation marks are appropriate. :wink: True Scotsman and all that.
    James Riley Options
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    "Soulmates" betray, domestically violate and divorce each other every day. — 180 Proof

    And there are soulmates who do not do that. I am not naysaying, I just don't want you to carry away the thought.
    god must be atheist Options
  • Tobias
    986
    Maybe I can help make the topic more philosophical.
    Is love really a form of going crazy? Or, is love an altered state of consciousness?
    If everyone were rational, would there be no love in society?     — Yohan

    Love I think is eminently rational. The mind wishes for a relationship to the world. If it would be otherwise, it would run up against the limits of itself, and solipsistically (or narcisisitacally) would olnly be confronted by itself vis a vis a meaningless world. It finds this relationship in another in which it recognises itself as a similar mind, looking for similar things. It bridges the world as 'other' and hence strange, and makes it 'an other alike oneself'.

    A short edit. We do not all act rational in love, but that simply shows that our relatonshio to the world is not one of ratio, but of intimacy, desire. Love is rational in so far as the feeling is comprehensible as a structural feature of our world.
    Tobias Options
  • 180 Proof
    14.3k
    ↪baker

    Maybe I can help make the topic more philosophical.
    Is love really a form of going crazy? Or, is love an altered state of consciousness?
    If everyone were rational, would there be no love in society?     — Yohan
    When in doubt about "love" :broken: ...

    ... and so on and so on. :eyes:
    180 Proof Options
  • Tobias
    986
    Hmmm, Zizek says it all while he figets with his shirt... The rationalty of love is redeemed by its falling into unreason, because only the fall presents to us a glimpse of what is real. Love negates reason, but it is reasonable that it does so... Our avoidance of the fall makes us unreasonable, wanting to have our cake and eat it too...
    Tobias Options
  • coolazice
    59
    Let's be honest: love is for poets, not philosophers. One more reason I'm not a philosopher...
    coolazice Options
  • 180 Proof
    14.3k
    Our avoidance of the fall makes us unreasonable, wanting to have our cake and eat it too... — Tobias
    Guilty as charged. :yum:
    180 Proof Options
  • baker
    5.6k
    ↪180 Proof
    I can't take him seriously. He fidgets too much, his surname spelled properly means a type of bug that lives in beans, and spelled with z's means 'titty', his English pronounciation is poor, he's been married to too many pretty women. And he fidgets too much.
    baker Options
  • 180 Proof
    14.3k
    ↪baker


    My God, to be brutally honest, it's just Z's Obscene Ideology! And so on and so on ... :monkey:
    180 Proof Options
  • john27
    693
    ↪dazed


    I've been hit by a thunderbolt, but can't seem to remember exactly what it felt like.

    My most prominent memory of that time was listening to "What You Won't Do For Love" by Bobby Caldwell, for six months straight.
    john27 Options
  • 180 Proof
    14.3k
    Maybe because friendship has always been the most fulfilling, significant form of love for me as long as I can remember; perhaps "my heart", so to speak, has never been "open" to more ... — 180 Proof
    https://philosophynow.org/issues/148/Iris_Murdoch_and_The_Mystery_of_Love
    180 Proof Options
  • Deletedmemberzc
    2.5k
    ↪180 Proof


    Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer.

    La Fontaine
    Deletedmemberzc Options
  • L'éléphant
    1.4k
    My buddy calls falling for someone this way, getting struck by a thunderbolt. I've never been struck by a thunderbolt. — dazed
    Not like a thunderbolt, but yeah. I had it, too. Deep fondness. It's crazy.
    L'éléphant Options
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